Florida Panthers scoring shorthanded goals at a blistering pace. The numbers behind it
The Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning were tied midway through the second period on Sunday when Florida defenseman Uvis Balinskis went to the box for a two-minute interference penalty.
The Lightning, boasting one of the league’s top power-play units, had the Panthers right where they wanted them.
Or so they thought.
During that two minute span when Florida was playing shorthanded, a total of three shots were fired. All were by the undermanned Panthers. Two of those shots went in, with A.J. Greer backhanding a Tomas Nosek rebound to beat Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy up high and Eetu Luostarinen scoring on a breakaway the following shift.
Two shorthanded goals in 42 seconds. The Panthers never looked back from there in an eventual 4-2 win over their in-state rival, the first meeting between the teams since Florida eliminated Tampa Bay in the first round of the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
“We did a great job,” Luostarinen said. “Everybody was alert and ready to go. Getting two goals there was big momentum for us.”
And scoring shorthanded is becoming almost commonplace for the Panthers this season — to the point where it’s time to start discussing the historical feats that could be coming.
The two shorthanded goals on Sunday give Florida a league-high 10 for the season, two shy of their franchise record of 12 set in 1997-98 and then matched in 2021-22 season.
It marked just the eighth time the Panthers have had multiple shorthanded goals in the same game, the fifth time with multiple shorthanded goals in the same period and the third time with multiple shorthanded goals on the same singular penalty kill.
The other times they scored shorthanded twice under the same two-minute penalty: Feb. 9, 2023, when Eric Staal scored a pair of empty netters when Florida had a player in the box against the San Jose Sharks and Dec. 30, 1998 when Radek Dvorak and Viktor Kozlov scored 40 seconds apart early in the third period of a 7-4 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins when Florida had to play shorthanded for a too many men on the ice penalty.
“You don’t expect your kill to be that dynamic,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said, “but it’s been like that all year.”
For context, there have been only 79 total shorthanded goals scored across the NHL this season entering Monday — Florida is responsible for more than one-eighth of them.
The Panthers are just the sixth team since the 2005-06 season to score at least 10 shorthanded goals through the first 35 games of the season.
And while Sam Reinhart leads the way with four individual shorthanded goals — as many as any other team in the NHL — Florida has seven players total who have found the back of the net on the penalty kill this season. Aleksander Barkov, Jesper Boqvist, Anton Lundell, Gustav Forsling, Greer and Luostarinen are the others.
Florida’s primary forward tandems on the penalty kill are Barkov and Reinhart as well as Lundell and Luostarinen. But the likes of Boqvist, Greer and Nosek — all offseason acquisitions — being able to step in and take shifts when needed without a dropoff is critical for Florida.
“You need that,” said Reinhart, who scored Florida’s other two goals on Sunday to extend his team lead to 22. “It saves some of us for other opportunities throughout the game. To have that depth, to have guys be able to step in there and execute the same systems and do the job is big.”
And Florida hasn’t compromised its ability to stop opponents from scoring on the power play while they are scoring shorthanded. After holding the Lightning 0 for 3 on the power play on Sunday, the Panthers are 12th in the league with an 81.2 percent success rate on the penalty kill.
“It’s all good defense that led to offense,” Reinhart said. “A couple good plays that led to some breaks and good execution.”
Added Maurice: “We don’t cheat for it. It’s not like we press for it. It’s just good sticks and good reads and quickness to get that opportunity.”
This story was originally published December 23, 2024 at 12:17 PM.
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