How Florida Panthers are dealing with top players going through extended scoring slumps
Carter Verhaeghe’s lack of scoring as of late isn’t for lack of effort or lack of chances. The Florida Panthers’ sharpshooting winger has had his looks — plenty of them — but it doesn’t change the fact that, entering Monday’s road game against the Colorado Avalanche, Verhaeghe hasn’t found the back of the net in eight consecutive games. That’s tied for his longest scoring drought of the season with an eight-game stretch to begin the season.
“It’s crazy,” said Verhaeghe, who has just nine goals through 40 games after scoring 76 goals over the previous two seasons. “But when I evaluate watching my game compared to previous years, there’s not much to change. I mean, at certain points, probably I could have double the amount of goals that I have this year. I think it’s just sticking with it.”
Over this eight-game drought, during which he does have three assists, Verhaeghe has logged 23 scoring chances and 10 high-danger chances, according to the advanced hockey statistics website Natural Stat Trick. Those are both second on the team behind only Matthew Tkachuk (24 scoring chances, 11 high-danger chances). His 2.24 expected goals for in those eight games are third on the team behind Tkachuk (2.43) and Sam Bennett (2.32).
Panthers coach Paul Maurice has since moved Verhaeghe down to the left wing of Florida’s third line with Anton Lundell at center and Jesper Boqvist at right wing. Verhaeghe was also moved down to Florida’s second power-play unit and replaced by rookie Mackie Samoskevich on Florida’s top group.
But Maurice on Sunday said he’s not too concerned about Verhaeghe ... yet.
“When you’ve got a shooter who’s gone a stretch and maybe he’s not scoring at the rate [he’s used to], there’s a time you worry about it and then there’s a time that you don’t,” Maurice said. “I think since he’s going with Anton, I’m not worried at all about when he scores next. It’s going to happen. ... I’m not worried about his game right now because all the other parts are just right on. He’ll score whenever he scores.”
But it’s not just Verhaeghe who is struggling to find the back of the net lately. The same could be said for a lot of the Panthers’ top players.
Bennett and Evan Rodrigues have gone 13 consecutive games without a goal.
Tkachuk has one goal in his past seven games.
Sam Reinhart has scored two goals in his past eight games — both of which came in the same game, Dec. 22 against the Tampa Bay Lightning, and one of which was an empty-netter.
Aleksander Barkov has two goals in his past nine games, one of which was an empty-netter.
Now, the Panthers’ success primarily comes from when they play shutdown, team-centric defense. They’ve learned to thrive in close and low-scoring games and are selfless when it comes to who actually scores the goals.
They have gotten scoring contributions from their bottom-six forwards and their defensemen over this stretch, which has helped offset the lack of scoring from the top players and is something Maurice said could be beneficial in the long run.
“You like to spread it around a little bit,” Maurice said.
That said, they need their key players to score more consistently as well.
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