Despite ‘ups and downs,’ Florida Panthers in good position halfway through season
Sometimes, it seems hard to process that it has already been three months since the Florida Panthers raised their Stanley Cup Championship banner and formally began their title defense.
Yet here the Panthers are, already halfway through the 2024-25 season.
“You wake up one morning and half the season’s gone and it’s like ‘Where did that go? We just came to training camp’ and then you look forward and we still have a hell of a half of a hockey season left here,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. “That tells you that you probably shouldn’t look back or forward. Just handle today. We’re going to try to stay in that moment a little bit harder now.”
In the moment, the Panthers are putting themselves in a position to defend their title.
At 24-15-2, the Panthers are in second place in the Atlantic Division, four points behind the Toronto Maple Leafs (26-13-2) and five points ahead of the Boston Bruins (20-17-5). The top three teams in each division and then the top two remaining teams in each conference make the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
For comparison, the Panthers were 27-12-2 at the halfway mark last season, which had them one point behind the Bruins for the top spot in the Atlantic Division.
And that’s coming with the pressure of knowing they’re getting every opponent’s best effort every night as the defending champions.
“I am pleased with how we’ve dealt with it,” Maurice said. “It’s an incredible learning experience. It’s a completely different set of emotions that you deal with in any other year, and I think we’ve handled it pretty well.”
But that doesn’t mean everything has gone right. The Panthers have gone through their rough patches, and that’s to be expected over the course of an 82-game season.
But they haven’t let the lulls last too long. Florida hasn’t had a losing streak longer than four games.
“It’s ups and downs,” forward Carter Verhaeghe said. “I think there’s definitely things to build on. And I mean to be where we’re at, and to have gone so far the last couple years, I think it’s obviously a really good position. ... To be in this position and not necessarily overly thrilled about where our game’s at is obviously really good. Second half, we just kind of try and build on what we’re doing here.”
Added captain Aleksander Barkov: “I feel like we have learned a lot about ourselves, how we play and how we want to play,’’ captain Aleksander Barkov said. “There have been a lot of good games where we have played exactly how we wanted. There has been both; we learn or we win. We have had a lot of those. It is hard to play hockey, but we want to want to learn to enjoy playing as hard as possible. Have tight games where we grind and come out on top. That’s how we want to play, and that’s how we played most of the season.’’
What needs to improve
Three main aspects come to mind:
▪ Get better (and healthy) on defense: The Panthers have played the past five games without Niko Mikkola, a pivotal player on their penalty kill and a steady presence as a second-pair defenseman. Aaron Ekblad is also dealing with injury and didn’t play Monday.
But even before the injuries, the Panthers’ defense has been shaky for most of the season. Florida is allowing 3.10 goals per game, which is 18th in the league.
▪ Get more consistent goaltending: Sergei Bobrovsky and Spencer Knight have both had some massive moments in the first half, but at the end of the day, the numbers tell the story.
Bobrovsky has a .901 save percentage, 2.76 goals against average and just a .065 goals saved above average in 27 starts.
Knight has a .891 save percentage, 2.80 goals against average and a -3.27 goals saved above average in 15 games (14 starts).
Bobrovsky has certainly done better as of late, posting a .921 save percentage over his past 12 starts, a stretch that includes seven starts with a save percentage of at least .930.
But overall, Florida needs to get more steady outings on a nightly basis in net.
▪ Get the offense back on track: For the season as a whole, the Panthers are averaging 3.24 goals per game, the ninth-best mark in the league. The power play is sixth-best in the league, converting at a 24.4-percent rate.
Both of those are great.
But... the offense has dipped massively as of late. Over the past eight games, the Panthers have scored just 15 goals while the power play has gone 3 for 21 (14.3 percent).
What’s next
The Panthers’ second-half schedule is no slouch. Florida has seven sets of back-to-backs among its final 41 games, in addition to 15 games against teams that would be in the playoffs if the season ended today.
“There’s lots to go on here before the season gets wrapped up,” Maurice said. “There’s lots that we can get better at that we’re trying to get better at, and sometimes it’s such a long path, you’re just better off not looking that far down the road. Just focus on your day.”
This story was originally published January 7, 2025 at 12:03 PM.
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