Three takeaways: Panthers struggle moving puck, not blaming lineup changes
Florida Head Coach Paul Maurice on the loss to Carolina: "We don't love the game, they won it, move on.”
There haven’t been many losses for the Florida Panthers this season like the one they suffered on Thursday night in Raleigh.
A game that started out well for Florida, as many on the road have, quickly snowballed into an uphill climb that the Panthers just couldn’t find the footing to pull off.
Carolina’s 4-0 win on Thursday was the second time in less than a month they shut out Florida at PNC Arena.
That’s certainly noteworthy, especially when considering that while the Panthers have gone an impressive 18-4-0 over their past 22 games, two of those four regulation losses have been the shutouts in Carolina.
Another playoff matchup between these two teams wouldn’t be the least entertaining thing in the world…
Let’s get to Thursday’s takeaways.
Trouble with the puck
The game started out just fine for the Panthers.
They outshot Carolina 10-4 over the game’s first 15-plus minutes and were doing well to limit the Hurricanes’ opportunities.
Slowly but surely, though, the Canes began taking over the game.
Florida found it increasingly difficult to move the puck out of their own end and through the neutral zone, which cut off much of their ability to enter the offensive zone and gain possession of the puck.
“I didn’t think that we moved the puck very well in the second period,” Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice said. “I liked our first (period) an awful lot. Down one, we're not worried about it. We had some pucks come into our end that normally we transition out…(we need to be) a little sharper with that. We got behind the play a little bit, so the second period got away from us.”
Impact of roster changes
Florida was missing two key forwards on Thursday; center Sam Bennett and winger Evan Rodrigues.
There were also a pair of forwards – Vladimir Tarasenko and Kyle Okposo – still getting acclimated in their first handful of games with a new team.
Not to mention top pairing defenseman Aaron Ekblad missing at least two weeks with a lower-body injury.
As we’ve seen in the past, losing a top six center can cause a ripple effect in Florida’s forward ranks that can turn their well-oiled machine into a sputtering, malfunctioning one.
Asked about all this after the game, Maurice didn’t pin any of the blame on Florida’s off night to their shifting around of players.
“Yeah, we got a couple of new guys in, and then you got a couple of guys to come out, so we’re little disjointed that, but that's just the standard operating procedure in the NHL,” Maurice said. “You always have three or four guys that are either banged up or out, so I don't think that is a factor in our game.”
Success breeds high expectations
Prior to Thursday’s defeat in Raleigh, Florida’s previous three regulation losses (which came over a nearly two-month span) were by a combined score of 5-2 and were all by one goal.
The last time they lost by more than one goal was Jan. 19 against Minnesota.
Other than Thursday, Florida has only lost by four goals twice this season. They were back-to-back 4-0 losses at Seattle and at Vancouver in mid-December.
It wasn’t long after that road trip that Florida’s surge up the standings began.
The message after the game from Maurice was simple: it was a loss. They are going to happen.
Florida is a very good hockey team.
They’ll be fine.
“You know what happens is you go 18-3 and then you have this expectation that they'll just go out and win game, and if you don't then there's something wrong,” Maurice said. “They had a good second (period), they got ahead of us, and that was it. We didn't have a lot of…I just didn't think we moved the puck as a group particularly well tonight, so it was hard to generate a whole heck of a lot. We don't love the game, they won it, move on.”
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