Florida Panthers Roundtable
Healthy Panthers reunite familiar grouping in attempt to ignite dormant power play
Florida's power play has been toward the bottom of the NHL all season, but there is optimism things are about to improve
The Florida Panthers were back on the ice for the first time in a couple days on Tuesday at Amerant Bank Arena.
It was a full team skate that featured all 23 players currently on the active roster.
The Panthers forward lines and defensive pairings remained the same, with Jonah Gadjovich and Steven Lorentz rotating on the fourth line left wing spot.
Florida also featured a fourth defensive pairing after taking Josh Mahura off Injured Reserve and recalling Uvis Balinskis from the AHL’s Charlotte Checkers.
A good portion of the 60ish minute practice was spent focused on special teams.
Over the past month, the Panthers penalty kill has been one of the best in the NHL.
The power play has not.
Despite generating plenty of zone time and high-end opportunities, the goals have been difficult to come by.
“That's what it feels like,” said Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice. “And then when you look at the numbers – and there's a whole bunch of different companies that do this, and we do it as well, we have our own group that values the chances – you're foolish to look at shots and say, ‘Hey, you had nine shots, (so that means) you had nine chances’ but we value them, and we are. We're getting an awful lot of chances, and then when you have a power play that doesn't go, that you don't get chances because that happens, it looks ugly, you can’t enter (the zone), then it's really frustrating, right? The puck has to go in the net. (The power play) doesn't have to be the best part of your game, as a matter of fact, you'd prefer that your power play isn't driving wins because there are other hard things you’ve got to do to be a good hockey team, but the power play has got to take some pressure off your five on five game. And when you put the five to seven or eight guys who are paid to score, they go on the powerplay, they feel that pressure and they want to produce. Then we get to a point where you're not, there's tension that comes into it. That's where we're at.”
Between the limited power play opportunities Florida has received in recent games and the lack of practice time due to the Panthers travel schedule over the past few weeks, there seems to be a feeling of understanding that things are going to improve.
Now that the Cats have a fully healthy roster for the first time this season, they’ve gone back to a familiar top power play grouping of Sasha Barkov, Matthew Tkachuk, Sam Reinhart, Sam Bennett and Brandon Montour.
It's a group that, late last season and into the playoffs, proved to be very effective for Florida.
“When you get limited chances, you’ve got to bear down with the urgency,” Montour said. “We’re back with the same unit we had, and comfortable with each other. Just keep that urgency up, creating chances, shooting the puck and getting in front of the goal.”
Entering play Tuesday, Florida’s power play was ranked 24th in the league, operating at a 17.5% success rate.
In the eight games the Panthers have played since Montour and Ekblad returned, the power play has gone 5-for-28. That 17.8% efficiency rate is right up to par with the full season.
The reason for optimism, however, is that the players on the ice who already have had success together should now be able to get back into form.
It’s also not like the unit doesn’t have much to build off of. The chances have been there, they just aren’t getting the puck in the net.
That’s been the case for one of the key members of the power play as well.
Last season, All-Star forward Matthew Tkachuk scored 40 goals, with 14 coming while on the man advantage. He’s only scored four goals in 24 games so far this year, none of which have come on the power play.
“I think that we have a lot of zone time, we're really good on draws and we seem to get shots, we just have to get more quality chances and better puck recoveries,” Tkachuk said. “It seems to all be there, and we have all the right pieces. We've got the same exact unit that was really, really successful last year, and has been a little bit more successful as of late, so I'm not worried about it at all. I think us offensive guys out there would like to see a few more go for the power play, and that's huge momentum for the team, but I really think it’s going to come, I'm very confident in our power play.”
The Panthers will host the Dallas Stars on Wednesday and the Pittsburgh Penguins on Friday before heading back out on the road again.
At the moment, Florida has a practice tentatively scheduled for Thursday.
Perhaps the extra practice reps for the now-healthy unit will be the spark it needs to ignite. That’s what Maurice seems to think.
“We just haven't had enough time on ice to practice it,” he said. “And then it was coupled with a run of games we were getting one or two (power plays), or they're truncated, so we just need to get that piece going.”
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