Even while riding high on win streak, Panthers know their ‘main goal’ is still in front of them
The Florida Panthers enter a five-game homestand playing their best hockey of the season. They have won a season-high eight games — including five against teams currently in playoff position — and have done so by playing their defense-first style that coach Paul Maurice has built over his first season-and-a-half in Sunrise.
But the Panthers aren’t resting on their laurels just yet. They aren’t thinking about the streak, either. They are just trying to play winning hockey.
“There’s no ego in our room,” Panthers star winger Matthew Tkachuk said. “Everyone’s truly in it for that main goal at the end.”
That goal, of course, is a Stanley Cup. They came oh so close to it last season before falling in five games to the Vegas Golden Knights in the Stanley Cup Finals.
But as the Panthers hit the midway point of this season with their Thursday game against the Los Angeles Kings, the hope is that this extended spurt of success is a microcosm of what they can showcase the rest of the way.
With that comes the understanding that their daily preparation needs to remain at a high standard for that success to continue.
“We’ve got a standard that we’re trying to hold ourselves to so we’re accountable to our game,” Maurice said prior to Florida’s 5-1 win over the St. Louis Blues on Tuesday that capped a perfect four-game road trip. “I would describe what we do as we have a small number of rules per system, but we really adhere to those rules. Even if you make a play and it’s a spin-o-rama over five sticks on the other side of the ice, we’re not very happy about it even if it goes in the back of the net. We judge ourselves by that, and for me, it’s how close can we get to that every night and then it’s how many games can you string together like that. And then, more importantly in all of this, when it doesn’t happen for you, how do you react to it?”
This winning streak shows just how Florida’s veteran-laden team reacts to trying times. Before rattling off these eight consecutive wins, Florida had lost four of five games. The Panthers were shut out twice and three of the 10 games in which the Panthers had given up at least four goals so far this season came during that five-game stretch.
Since then, they have outscored opponents 36-15 over the past eight games entering Thursday. Opponents have scored more than two goals just twice in that span, while Florida has put up at least four goals in seven of the eight games. The power play is finally clicking, scoring on 32.4 percent of its chances over the eight games, while the penalty kill remains dominant with a 92-percent success rate.
And it’s not just one player doing the heavy lifting. Tkachuk leads the way with 17 points (six goals and 11 assists), but three other players have at least a dozen points over the eight games in Carter Verhaeghe (14 points — seven goals, seven assists), Aleksander Barkov (14 points, all assists) and Sam Reinhart (12 points — 11 goals, one assist). Ten players have scored goals overall during the run.
“When you can get on a roll like this, it takes some pressure off some other times throughout the season when it’s not going well,” said Reinhart, who leads the team with 29 goals. “I think we were kind of struggling a bit, both mentally and physically through the grind, kind of getting back from those two long road trips in December. It was nice to get to regroup over Christmas.”
Now, it’s a matter of building off what they have accomplished as they prepare for the second half of the season and eventually the playoffs as they keep their eye on that ultimate goal.
“The best part of this is that it came off of us learning what we can’t do in a game,” Maurice said. “We got back to our core, our style. It always goes like that. Once you stop worrying about scoring goals, you start scoring goals. ... We’re not walking around where everything is going right and where we’re scoring for fun. It’s not that kind of run. That group of men has worked their butts off.”
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