Injuries mount, and the Panthers' struggle continue. Can veteran leadership and goaltending resilience spark a turnaround amidst a frustrating losing streak?
The Florida Panthers are having a tough time right now.
Decimated by injuries, Florida’s lineup has been putting in the work but coming up short in terms of results.
The latest example came on Tuesday night at Amerant Bank Arena when the Panthers suffered their fourth straight defeat on home ice, a 4-1 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Between the state of the team’s roster and how they have struggled to find results, thins are far from the sunshine and rainbows Florida has enjoyed over the past few seasons.
Still, there is plenty of hockey left to be played, and this is a squad full of veteran leadership that knows how to win.
To borrow a line from a classic comedy, was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? HELL NO!
With that in mind, hhere are Tuesday’s takeaways:
STICK WITH THE PROGRAM
Over the past few seasons, the Panthers have prided themselves on being a team that kept things at a very even keel.
They have actively tried, and for the most part succeeded, in never getting too high or two low as they battled their way toward the Stanley Cup.
It’s a little different now with so many key players missing from the lineup, but keeping the train on the tracks is vital.
There is still plenty of talent on this team, and when everyone is pulling the rope equally, the results should be there for them once again.
At least that’s the message from the bench boss.
“In these situations, just stay with it is the most important thing,” said Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice. “But then we’ve got to get better, right? We’ve got to get some higher end performances out of guys. I mean, they're playing as hard as they can. The puck is not as friendly as it used to be, there's tension on the stick, that's normal, and you see that when you lose a few in a row. So finding that good feeling, and sometimes it's not a whole game, you’ve just got to start with a period, and I thought we did that tonight, even though it felt bad, and I’ve felt that a bunch of our games.
BOB BATTLED BACK
Similarly to the Panthers as a whole, Florida starting goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky has not played up to the standard he’s set for himself over the past several seasons.
On Tuesday, Bob allowed a pair of goals in the first eight minutes, putting the Cats in a quick 0-2 hole.
The first goal was scored by Troy Stecher and came on a wrist shot from the point, a low danger shot that felt like a let-down for a Florida team looking to turn around their recent struggles.
Bobrovsky snapped back into place after that, though.
He allowed two more goals on the following 26 shots he faced, and both that got by him came on high danger shots.
Was he good? Yes. He usually is.
Does he need to be better? Considering the state of the rest of the team, yes, but he usually raises the level of his play as the season progresses, so this is nothing new.
Does the team need to be better in front of him? Yes. One of the big reasons for Bobrovsky’s resurgence following a rough first few years in Florida has been the improvement of the defending in front of him.
Bottom line…when the team is struggling as much as it is, mistakes become more glaring.
That’s especially true of goals against.
“He made a bunch of big saves,” Maurice said. “When our game does slightly open up, and it needs to at points, he made a whole bunch of big saves, for sure.”
GOING TO BE AN UPHILL CLIMB
Tuesday’s loss dropped Florida to 12-12-1 on the season.
Those 25 points in the standings are good for dead last in the Eastern Conference.
That’s a shocking place to find the defending Stanley Cup Champs after 25 games.
Now, they’re only five points behind both Ottawa and Detroit for second and third place in the Atlantic Division and six points behind Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, who hold the two Wild Card spots in the East, so it’s not an impossible task for them to climb back into the thick of the playoff race.
Still though, with more than a quarter of the season now gone, it’s not a good feeling for the Panthers to look at the standings and see where all their hard work has gotten them so far.
It can be good motivation though.
“I don't mind them looking at the standings,” said Maurice. “We’ll keep the urgency. We can sit here and say we’ve got lots of hockey left, but we've been through situations where we had to crawl back from nine (points out), but that's with a healthy lineup and that's hard to do. So I don't mind them looking at it and having acceptance of perspective. You have to accept where you're at, and that's part of it. We're on the outside looking in, and we may have a few games in hand, but we got to win those games in hand. And then the perspective is that, you know, we've got to crawl out of this. We're not going to turn this thing to a full sprint, we just don't have that.”
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Photo caption: Nov 28, 2025; Sunrise, Florida, USA; Florida Panthers left wing Brad Marchand (63) celebrates with center Sam Reinhart (13) and center Anton Lundell (15) after scoring against the Calgary Flames during the third period at Amerant Bank Arena. (Sam Navarro-Imagn Images)