Florida may have lost on Saturday in New York, but it was the best they've looked in several games

Considering the way things have been going for the Florida Panthers over the past several weeks, Saturday’s night’s loss to the New York Rangers was actually a step in the right direction.

While yes, the Panthers dropped their fourth straight game, losing to the Rangers 4-3 in a shootout, Florida looked better than they had in several games.

That’s especially impressive considering the players that the Panthers were missing when they took the ice at Madison Square Garden for a primetime game on national television.

We’ll see if they can keep it going on Sunday with a quick back-to-back wrapping up in Philly, but first lets get to the takeaways from Saturday’s game on Broadway.

Step in the right direction

There were several positives to take from Florida’s game in New York.

Again, when taking into account the recent string of subpar outings, the Panthers starting to click back into gear is a welcomed sight.

That is particularly true when considering the players Florida was missing (we’ll get to that in a moment).

“I'm real happy with how hard they played,” Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice said afterwards. “The effort, the stuff that you guys can't hear or appreciate, just the wiredness of the bench and (how they were) pulling for each other. It's been a little bit of a grinder for us. The element that we haven't been able to grab hold of in our games was in it tonight. I was very happy with it.”

Shorthanded roster steps up, Bjornfot solid debut

Missing Sasha Barkov, Ryan Lomberg and Jonah Gadjovich up front, and Aaron Ekblad, Gus Forsling and Dmitry Kulikov on the blueline, Florida had to dig extremely deep and tap into the team’s roster depth.

Somehow, someway, that’s exactly what the Panthers did, playing their best game in a couple weeks and doing it with a lineup construction never seen before Saturday.

The unique roster also allowed Maurice and his staff the ability to see how some non-traditional groupings performed together, which is valuable information ahead of the playoffs.

“You learn a whole bunch of stuff, right? Different line combinations, different D pairings. We got to see Tobias (Bjornfot) for the first time. He hasn't played hockey in a long time and his second shift I think he's down past the goal line on the other end. I thought, ‘Good for you, young man. Go show us what you can do and play the game to win.’ It was really good.”

PK digs deep

Not only were the Panthers playing shorthanded, but they were also missing four of their best penalty killers.

Barkov, Ekblad, Forsling and Kulikov are all regulars on Florida’s PK.

While the Cats did allow New York a power play goal, Maurice was still very pleased with how the unit rallied and played quite well when called upon later in the game.

“Every time we got a kill, that was a really important thing. We have four penalty killers out of our lineup, and they're all really high-end penalty killers. So we gave up the one (power play goal), you kind of expect it. We grinded out the next two, I was really happy that we were able to that. Sergei (Bobrovsky) made a couple of big saves. We were anchored right, our leadership, the guys in the room…it was fantastic, and the bench was right.”

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