Panthers’ playoff hopes ‘are in trouble now.’ Is there time to fix it?
The Florida Panthers have been holding on as long as they possibly can.
But time might be running out.
After a 5-3 loss to the Buffalo Sabres on Monday night — a game in which they blew an early two-goal lead, tied it late in the second and then wasted the comeback bid away in the third — Florida (28-24-3, 59 points) finds itself nine points out of playoff positioning with 27 games left on the schedule.
Even more, there are four other teams in between the Panthers and the Boston Bruins (32-20-4, 68 points), who are currently in the Eastern Conference’s final wild-card spot. Florida hosts Boston on Wednesday night (7 p.m., TNT) in its second-to-last game before the NHL’s Olympic break.
“We are in trouble right now,” star Panthers winger Matthew Tkachuk said after Florida’s loss Monday, the team’s fourth consecutive defeat to send them tumbling to last in the Atlantic Division.
Through injuries and inconsistent performance, the back-to-back defending Stanley Cup champions have faced an uphill climb all season in their quest for a three-peat. They knew the task would be challenging under normal circumstances.
But this?
This might be too much to bear.
By the start of the second period on Monday, the Panthers were playing without eight regulars from their lineup. This includes all four of their projected starting centers after Sam Bennett left with an upper-body injury midgame. Florida has already been without Aleksander Barkov (right ACL/MCL) and Tomas Nosek (knee) all season plus Anton Lundell (upper body) the past three games.
Veteran winger Brad Marchand has missed consecutive games and nine of the past 13 overall with undisclosed injuries. Defensemen Seth Jones (upper body) and Dmitry Kulikov (shoulder) plus fourth-line winger Jonah Gadjovich (upper body) also remain sidelined through at least the Olympic break.
“It seems like somebody’s getting injured every night,” said Tkachuk, who himself missed the first 45 games of the season while recovering from offseason surgery to repair a torn adductor muscle and sports hernia.
It also seems like the Panthers are finding ways to lose more than they are finding ways to win as of late.
After sweeping through a road trip with gritty wins over the Winnipeg Jets in a shootout and Minnesota Wild in overtime plus a dominant third period over an improved Chicago Blackhawks team, Florida has been a shell of itself the past four games.
Florida led or was tied going into the third period of every one of these games but couldn’t pull out a single point in any of them, giving up seven total goals on just 30 shots against in those four games to seal their defeats. The Panthers themselves have just one goal on 37 shots for in the third period of those four games.
- Jan. 27 against Utah: Florida tied the game twice in the second period before the Mammoth’ Mikhail Sergachev scored the go-ahead goal on a tip-in 11:05 into the third period and Barrett Hayton added an empty-netter with a minute left. Carter Verhaeghe scored with 16 seconds left to give Florida one final chance to tie but to no avail in the 4-3 loss.
- Thursday at St. Louis: Tkachuk scored twice late in the second period to tie the game but the Blues’ Jimmy Snuggerud scored on a snap shot with nine seconds left for a 5-4 win.
- Saturday against Winnipeg: Florida took a one-goal lead into the third period but gave up two goals in the third period — by Cole Perfetti 8:34 into the frame and by Mark Scheifele with 4:14 left in regulation — despite only allowing five shots to fall 2-1.
- And Monday against Buffalo: Florida, which led 2-0 after six minutes then gave up three consecutive goals to Buffalo, tied the game at 3-3 late in the second period on an Uvis Balinskis goal. Jason Zucker scored on the power play 5:31 into the third to give the Sabres the lead again for good and Josh Doan, who had the primary assist on Zucker’s tally, added an insurance tally on a two-on-one with Peyton Krebs with 2:09 left to play.
“It’s frustrating,” Verhaeghe said. “We’re usually a good third-period team, and the bounces aren’t going our way. But it’s also on us to play better in the third. It’s tough, winning games only scoring one goal, too. So, I mean, we got to find a way to generate a little more.”
Added Tkachuk: “We seem to be pressing in the third. I think physically, the guys that are playing, the majority of the guys are hanging in there. But mentally, it sucks chasing these games. This could get away from us if we don’t figure it out.”
Time is running out to figure it out.
Winning the next two games against Boston on Wednesday and at Tampa Bay on Thursday (7:30 p.m., ESPN+/Hulu) would be a needed start. Get those four points — with the win over the Bruins being in regulation — and Florida’s gap will be down to five points for the final spot, a much more manageable situation to work through than their current spot.
It would also be almost similar to the spot they were in during the 2022-23 season, coach Paul Maurice’s first with the team. On Jan. 27, 2023, Florida was five points back of the final wild card spot with 31 games left to play. The Panthers went 19-10-2 the rest of the way — including putting together two separate seven-game point streaks — to get the final spot into the field before making its first of three consecutive runs to the Stanley Cup Final.
“Experience counts,” said defenseman Aaron Ekblad, one of 10 players on Florida’s roster who has been part of all three Cup Final runs, “especially in these situations where we’ve got to play as well as we possibly can.”
Added Maurice: “The thing you learn — it’s the same things in the playoffs — is how to cut off losses and try to wind up for the next game. I don’t think we would be as emotional right now as we were maybe when we got into that year. We lost four straight games in March, and that was it was over, right? We were fighting every night. And then you learned that it’s just not [over]. As painful as it is ... you can cut that off, deal with it, cut it off, and be good the next night.”
The Panthers will need to start getting good and getting good fast if they want to keep making a playoff push.
“We’re in one right now,” Tkachuk said, “and if we don’t simplify [our game], this year is going to get away from us.”
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