It wasn't a perfect game, but the Panthers worked hard and earned two big points Saturday against Detroit

The Florida Panthers played a strong game on Saturday afternoon against the Detroit Red Wings and left Amerant Bank Arena with two points.

Those are the facts, and they are undisputed.

Was it the prettiest of games for Florida? No.

Did the Panthers take way too many penalties, again? Yes.

But the bottom line is that they played well on both ends of the ice, did what they wanted with the puck for decent-sized chunks of the game and overall, were able to leave the rink with a smile and a good feeling, knowing their hard work earned them a welcomed dub.

Here are the takeaways.

A deserved win

Florida may not have played a perfect game on Saturday, but it’s hard to argue that they weren’t the better team on the ice.

The Red Wings spent much of the game on their heels, stuck in their own zone and dealing with Florida’s 91 shot attempts.

“It was an unusual game,” said Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice. “We had an awful lot of zone time, lots of shot blocks, but also some really fine opportunities to score. Alex Lyon made some really good saves, and I think we missed on a bunch too, and then you’re in the box and you’ve got a problem. We were better than the final score, is what I thought.”

Too many penalties

Both of Detroit’s goals on Saturday came while they were on the power play. Florida went 4-for-6 on the penalty kill, a game after they also allowed the New York Islanders six chances on the man advantage.

Over the Panthers past four games, they have allowed their opponents an eye-popping 21 power plays, killing off 17 of them.

Maurice, who has said several times over the past week that Florida needs to do a better job of staying out of the penalty box, made light of the situation after Saturday’s game.

At this point, that’s about all he can do other than starting to break things.

“We’re working on our kill the last two games,” Maurice said. “We petitioned the league for a little more penalty kill time and they’ve been good about it.”

Anger fueling turnaround?

Florida’s struggles over the past several weeks have been well documented.

From things like injuries and illnesses to struggling with special teams or the inability to hold late leads, there has been no shortage of reasons to point the finger at and say, ‘hey, this needs to improve.’

As much as the fans have been voicing their frustrations, you can bet your bottom dollar that Maurice and his players have been feeling the weight of their recent complications.

Perhaps it’s reached the point where, when all else fails, it’s that pressure that helping snap things back into place.

“I think we've needed the frustration that we've been seeing, frustration and adversity,” Maurice said. “We created our own problems, to start. We had a whole bunch of problems, just some strange things that happened. We had some health issues, we had a bunch of guys get sick that we didn't say much about. Then we had the disparity in power play, penalty kill adversity, and that'll frustrate you, too. But I think we got better through it tonight. That's a players win for me because the coaches didn't have much to say today. I really liked the way they ran the bench, and I like the way they came together tonight. I thought that was really important.”

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