Takeaways as turnovers, rushes, missed chances doom Florida Panthers in loss to Blues
The Florida Panthers wanted to shake off a rough five-game road trip.
Their first game back home didn’t go as planned, losing 4-1 to the St. Louis Blues on Thursday at Amerant Bank Arena.
Florida falls to 18-12-2 and has lost four of its past five games. St. Louis improves to 16-15-1.
Here are three takeaways from the game.
Giveaways, odd-man rushes put Panthers behind
St. Louis scored three of its four goals against Florida in the second period and all of them can be attributed to either giveaways or odd-man rushes.
Goal 1: Brandon Montour turns the puck over in the neutral zone, resulting in a three-on-one rush for the Blues. Jordan Kyrou, Pavel Buchnevich and Robert Thomas pass the puck around before Kyrou ultimately beats Bobrovsky short-side to give the Blues a 1-0 lead 4:50 into the period.
Buchnevich then made it 2-0 at the 7:46 mark of the period when St. Louis stole the puck from Gustav Forsling as he was entering the offensive zone. The trio of Kyrou, Buchnevich and Thomas again go on a passing spree before Buchnevich’s backhanded shot as he’s falling down toward the right circle beats Bobrovsky.
And then Alexey Torpchenko capped scoring in the period when Oliver Ekman-Larsson’s pass from behind the Panthers’ net was intercepted at center ice to set the Blues up with another prime opportunity that ended with Toropchenko deflecting in a Marco Scandella shot from the point with 3:17 left in the period to put St. Louis up 3-1.
“It’s a really good example of why you can’t play a rush game,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said, “because you don’t have to give up a lot of chances. We gave up five probably in the second period and they scored three of them, but I’m not looking to [goaltender] Sergei Bobrovsky on any of them. They’re all turnovers at the line because we want to play the rush game going that way and then you just give it to the other team.”
Buchnevich then added an empty-net goal with 3:09 left in regulation.
Florida Panthers’ offense becoming feast or famine
The Panthers have a troubling trend brewing when it comes to their goal scoring: It’s either coming in bunches or it’s not coming at all, regardless of how often they are outshooting their opponents.
Dating back to Florida’s 5-4 overtime win against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Nov. 6 — the first time they scored five goals in a game this season — the Panthers have gone 13-8-1.
The Panthers have scored at least four goals in 11 of their 13 wins.
In their nine losses, including Thursday, they have been held to one goal or fewer eight times.
And it’s not for an inability to put the puck on the net when they lose. The Panthers outshot St. Louis 39-25 on Thursday but only got one goal — and a fluky one at that when Eetu Luostarinen’s attempt to bank the puck off the boards deflected off a curved piece of glass and caromed into St. Louis’ net.
In the past nine losses, Florida has outshot opponents 309-233 but has scored just eight times. That’s averaging less than one goal per game despite averaging 34.3 shots on goal in those games.
Compare that to the 13 wins in that same stretch of time: 58 total goals on 405 shots — that’s an average of just under 4.5 goals on 31.2 shots on goal per game.
Next up: A Stanley Cup Final rematch
The Panthers’ final game before the NHL’s holiday break is also their first game this season against the team that ended their quest for the Stanley Cup six months ago.
Florida hosts the Vegas Golden Knights for a 3 p.m. puck drop on Saturday.
It’s the first meeting since Vegas’ Stanley Cup-sealing win on June 13.
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