It’s ‘rally mode’ time for Panthers as they try to climb out of Eastern Conference cellar
Paul Maurice is fine with his team looking at where the Florida Panthers are in the standings.
Maybe, the coach said, it will provide a spark.
“It’ll keep the urgency,” Maurice said.
After the Panthers’ 4-1 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs on Tuesday, they certainly need it.
Florida is now 12-12-1 25 games into the season entering its Thursday home game against the Nashville Predators (7 p.m., Scripps Sports). With just 25 points and a .500 points percentage, the Panthers are in last place in the Eastern Conference nearly one-third of the way through the season.
Now, the season isn’t lost just yet. After all, Florida still has 57 games left on the schedule and the Eastern Conference standings are pretty tight — only nine points separate Florida from first place in the conference, currently a three-way tie among the Tampa Bay Lightning, Carolina Hurricanes and Washington Capitals.
But to make that climb, the Panthers are going to need to dig deep. A lineup that is a shell of what it was during its two Stanley Cup runs during the past two years as injuries have ravaged the roster will need to step up its game — and quickly — before things get out of hand.
“It’s gotta be the guys in the room and the guys that are healthy that are gonna have to get us out of it,” forward Sam Reinhart said. “I’d say the compete, the work, is there. We’re just gonna find a way to kind of stick with it and start getting points.”
Reinhart will have to be at the forefront of that group. He’s one of the few healthy high-end contributors the Panthers still have as they deal with a slew of nagging injuries.
While Florida is hopeful to have a couple key players — namely star winger Matthew Tkachuk (adductor muscle and sports hernia surgery) and underrated do-it-all forward Eetu Luostarinen (lower-body burns) — back soon, the rest of their key sidelined players are still a ways away.
Captain and top-line center Aleksander Barkov (right knee ACL/MCL surgery) is out most likely the entire regular season at minimum. Fourth-line forwards Tomas Nosek (knee) and Jonah Gadjovich (upper body) are out multiple months, as is fill-in fourth-line center Cole Schwindt (broken arm). Defenseman Dmitry Kulikov (shoulder) is out until March.
“This is our hockey team,” Maurice said. “Even if Luostarinen comes back sometime toward the end [of the month], nobody else is, so this is what we’ve got. That’s why you have to find a new way to grind and maybe new ways to win at times and build your confidence in smaller pieces in the game and not look at the record as the forward motion. You’re always going to start playing a little bit better before you start winning. I think we’ve had that in our games, and we have to have a bit of patience with what we’re doing, and then we do have to get a little stronger performance out of a few guys, because we just don’t have the margin for error.”
Is it hard to have that patience?
“Oh yeah, it’s brutal,” Maurice said, “but we know what we’ve got. We know the situation that we and we all have enough experience to handle it.”
Even with trips to the Stanley Cup Final each of the past three years and winning it all each of the past two seasons, Florida has gone through tough stretches over the past few seasons. Losing streaks happen. Injuries happen. Failing to meet absurdly high expectations happen.
How they persevere through that — and how quickly they find a way to turn the page and get out on the other side — is paramount.
“It doesn’t matter what happened in the past, but our experience helps us to believe,” Panthers goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky said. “We built a belief over the years, and this is the situation where we have to use it. We have to. We know it’s in this room. We know what we’re capable of. We’re excited about the challenge.”
Added Maurice: “We have enough players here that know the basic foundation of what we’re getting to and that’s all we’re talking about now is just the basics of the foundation of the game. There’s good time to whip your team and then there’s a good time to rally them. We’re in rally mode now.”
This story was originally published December 3, 2025 at 12:37 PM.
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