Mikkola scores first goal, but Panthers continue to struggle in latest loss to Capitals

The Florida Panthers are in a bad place right now, and there’s no easy fix.

They’ve now dropped four straight and six of seven, and what makes their latest loss -- a 4-1 defeat at the hands of the Washington Capitals -- confounding is it they were much improved on defense Monday, and yet it still didn’t matter.

After surrendering a 26 combined goals in those previous five losses, the Panthers got a superb performance from Spencer Knight -- and still lost.

Knight erased a ton of his teammates’ mistakes with 28 saves on 29 shots. But like a pitcher with no run support, he had no margin for error.

That’s because the Panthers were 0 for 4 on the man advantage and generally sloppy no matter how many men were on the ice.

As a result, they’ve extended their worst stretch of team hockey since going 3-8-1 late in the 2023-2024 regular season.

“I don’t think it was particularly effective tonight,” Maurice said tersely of his power play, which entered the game ranked 11th (18.5 percent). “... There’s a piece of our game that’s missing and we’re gonna have to find it.”

Certainly, the quality of opponent has been a factor. Aside from their inexcusable 3-1 result in Chicago, the Panthers’ losses during these last two weeks have all been against quality teams.

And the sledding gets no easier Wednesday, when the Atlantic Division-leading Toronto Maple Leafs come to Sunrise.

The warning signs Monday were there early.

The Panthers made it to the first intermission tied despite getting largely outplayed largely because of one player: Defensemen Niko Mikkola, who scored Florida’s only goal and prevented another.

Mikkola lit the lamp for the first time in 2024-2025 exactly seven minutes into the game, cashing in a perfect pass from Sam Bennett on an odd-man rush.

Later in the period, Mikkola alertly tied up Washington forward Pierre-Luc Dubois in front of the net. Otherwise, it probably would have been a rebound goal for the Capitals.

But eventually, the Capitals (14-6-1) were going to break through, considering how one-sided the action was in the first period. That breakthrough came with 2:11 left before the break, when Washington defenseman Jakob Chychrun dropped a cross-ice pass on Lar Eller’s blade, a perfect setup that Eller didn’t waste.

Still, the Panthers had to have been thrilled to go to locker room tied at 1-1, considering how thoroughly they had been out played. Florida’s first shot didn’t come until 6:12 into regulation -- they managed just three more after that the rest of the period. Washington finished the period with nearly twice as many scoring chances (11-6).

Florida’s form improved in the second period, even if its fortunes did not. The Panthers had all kinds of chances late in the second -- a rising wrist shot from Bennett that found winning goalie Logan Thompson’s mitt here, a gorgeous through-the-legs attempt from Aleksander Barkov that barely missed the target there. But for the most part. it was frustration on the offensive end, fueled by an 0-for-2 showing on the man advantage in the second period.

It was up to Knight to keep the Panthers in it, and he did -- often against the odds.

But no amount of wizardry was going to save the Panthers from the 5-on-3 advantage they handed the Caps early in the third period.

They were down a man coming out of the locker room thanks to an Uvis Balinskis tripping penalty with 22 seconds left in the second. Mistakes compounded when Aaron Ekblad slashed Connor McMichael 16 seconds into the third.

Those errors left simply too much open ice space, which Chychrun exploited with a straight-on wrist shot that he buried glove-side.

Eller and Ivan Miroshnichenko added empty-netters to make the final score far more lopsided than the actual game.

“I see it every day in practice how good they are,” Knight said postgame. “I don’t have a doubt in my mind that these guys are just gonna turn it around.”