Florida Panthers are no strangers to long road winning streaks
Florida is currently riding a franchise-record 10-game winning streak in games away from home
The Florida Panthers have come a long way since Dec. 18, their last road loss to the Calgary Flames. The team had been shut out twice prior, in Vancouver and Seattle. At the time, it looked like the Boston Bruins were going to run away with the Atlantic Division.
Since the loss in Calgary, the Panthers have gone 17-5-2, good for a three-quarters points percentage.
One thing that has stood out the most in their 24-game stretch is their 10 straight road wins. The most impressive thing about getting to 10 straight road wins is the gaps in between the games.
How many days were there in between the last road loss in Calgary and the first win of the streak in Tampa? Eight Days. From win number five in St. Louis to the sixth in Nashville? 13. Win number eight on Long Island to number nine in Pittsburgh? 18 days. Gaps in the schedule were due to the NHL holiday break, the NHL All-Star Break, and a five-game homestand all in-between.
The gaps between road games has not phased this group. They say that teams build chemistry best while on the road, where they have an opportunity to bond off the ice, whether it’s dinners around town or being a tourist.
Despite getting shutout in Seattle in mid-Dec., the Panthers took a trip to the Space Needle during their trip out west. They also practiced in Vail, Colorado in between their games in Denver and St. Louis.
There have also been two sets of road back-to-back’s during the win streak, where there were two different storylines attached to them. The first set in late January were two wins past regulation. Florida does not play a lot of overtime games, as only nine games have gone past regulation. The second set were games won by a total of seven goals combined and in regulation, where Florida leads the Eastern Conference with 30 regulation wins, two more than the next best team.
Florida is also 4-0-1 on the second end of a back-to-back this season.
“It has a lot to do with playing simple,” Carter Verhaeghe said on the teams’ preparation on the road. “That’s when our team is at its best, we’re not trying to force plays. The mentality is trying to grind it out, trying to give ourselves a chance, I think that’s when we are comfortable in games.”
There have been games that featured some hat tricks, one by Sam Reinhart in Colorado and a natural hat trick for Matthew Tkachuk in St. Louis. Tkachuk has also led the NHL in points with 38 since Dec. 23. Twenty-one of those points (nine goals, 12 assists) have come away from Amerant Bank Arena.
There has also been adversity during the road winning streak, such as when Aleksander Barkov and Evan Rodrigues left the game in Las Vegas due to injury in the first period. There were no passengers on that night.
Florida would get three power play goals while killing all six of their penalties in a 4-1 victory. Barkov and Rodrigues would luckily come back to the lineup the next game in Colorado.
Although Barkov would be okay to finish the road trip, he would end up getting hurt against the Anaheim Ducks on Dr. Martin Luther King Day Jr. Day. He would miss the next three games, which included a road game in Nashville, where defenseman Gustav Forsling was also not in the lineup due to the birth of his child.
Florida would end up defeating Nashville 4-1 where Anthony Stolarz gave up one goal on 27 shots.
There has been a healthy split in starts during the road winning streak with Stolarz getting four of the starts, and Sergei Bobrovsky getting six.
In road environments, it is a little more difficult for goaltenders to communicate to their team, whether it’s telling their defenseman who to draw towards or how they want them positioned so they are not getting screened.
Consistency between the pipes is what has Florida with 74 points through 54 games and tied for first place in the Eastern Conference. Stolarz has been everything the Panthers could have hoped for with a road record of 7-2-1, a .940 save percentage and a league leading 1.64 Goal-against average away from Sunrise.
“[Stolarz] made a few huge saves that had a better chance of going in than being stopped,” forward Ryan Lomberg said after Thursdays win in Buffalo. “He’s been doing it all year for us. He comes in when his number is called and he shuts the door.”
There were also shakeups in the forward lines too once Barkov returned to the lineup. Head Coach Paul Maurice placed forward Mackie Samoskevich on the top line with Barkov once the captain returned from injury. Those included two road games in Pittsburgh and in Belmont Park.
Reinhart was also placed on a line with Anton Lundell and Eetu Luostarinen, where that line remained intact for the three games prior to the All-Star Break. Reinhart and Lundell are no stranger to playing with one another.
Speaking of no stranger, this is not the Panthers’ first long road winning streak. During the teams run to the Stanley Cup Final last season, after losing Game 1 on April 17 to Boston, their next road loss would not come until Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final on June 3 in Vegas.
There has also been another key component in Florida’s success, and that’s special teams. Through the 10 games, they’ve killed 37 of their 39 penalties. For the season, they are leading the league in road penalty kill percentage at 88.5%. Free agent signings like defenseman Niko Mikkola have been huge for the Panthers in their role of blocking shot and battling for pucks along the boards.
“We’ve played well in front of our goaltending all year, so sometimes you don’t notice how well they played for us,” Maurice added after their win in Buffalo.
The Panthers will play their final game of their current three game road trip in Amalie Arena against the Tampa Bay Lightning, where they could tie the seasons longest road winning streak at 11, where the Los Angeles Kings accomplished that earlier in the season.
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