Three takeaways: Maurice downplays comeback attempt, shakeup on back end
Florida has a quick turnaround, facing the Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday night
There are seven games left on the Florida Panthers regular season schedule, and the team is far from where it wants to be.
They are going through some things, figuring things out, trying to get back on track. This is just not the time of year when you want to be doing it.
Once viewed as the most consistent, dominant team in the NHL that nobody wanted to face come playoff time, the Panthers are now just 2-6-1 over their past nine games.
Florida has not looked like itself, no longer showing the all-out, relentless effort that made their style of play so difficult to go up against.
They have two weeks to figure out how to get back to what they know they are capable of.
Let’s get to Monday’s takeaways.
Downplaying the comeback
Florida’s best period on Monday was the third period.
They could’ve been completely average in every way possible, and it would have been their best 20 minutes, by far.
But they were actually pretty good during the final frame, and the advanced metrics back that up.
Call it anger, call it a motivational tactic or something else, but after the game, Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice was not interested in pumping the tires of the Comeback Cats.
“They had a 5-1 lead, and it’s tough to keep the momentum off that,” Maurice said. “We threw a few pucks at the net, got a little action going. I don’t think that we got a whole lot better in the third. We got a bit better. That’s about it.”
Not much ‘Panthers’ hockey
Overall, Monday night was the latest in a string of hockey games where Florida has not looked much like the team that marched through much of the regular season with relative ease.
Sure, the comeback was fun and exciting, but even that wasn’t really done utilizing the grinding, hard-nosed kind of hockey the Panthers want to impose on their opponents.
When addressing the media afterwards, Maurice was asked if this was one of those games where you just burn the tape and move on.
“There wouldn't be a lot in that game that you could pre-scout for our team,” Maurice said. “If you're gonna prep your playoff, pre-scout video, I don't think there's a lot in that game that you could use. I would hope they would, but I don't think they will.”
Rough night for Kuli and OEL
In recent weeks, Maurice has been quick to defend his defensemen when discussing Florida’s defensive issues.
There is just as much responsibility on the forwards when it comes to defending in Maurice’s five-man systems, and he hasn’t been shy about calling out the effort from his forward unit.
Monday night, however, Maurice did something he normally does not. He juggled his defensive pairings a bit.
Maurice said it was more a biproduct of the game and the struggles of his bottom pairing, though he did not call them out by name.
Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Dmitry Kulikov combined for a -5 rating and a pair of giveaways.
“I have six good defensemen in the lineup, two or three had pretty difficult nights tonight in some of the puck decisions, and they’re a lot better than that,” Maurice said.
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