Panthers hold full team practice at SAP Center in San Jose on Jan. 24. Things got away from the Florida Panthers on Sunday night against the Vegas Golden Knights, but they didn’t play that bad of a game. At least not until things got away from them. Florida will return home from their four-game road trip with a split after falling 4-1 to the Golden Knights at T-Mobile Arena. Image [https://thehockeynews.com/.image/c_fit,h_600,w_600/MjAwNjE3OTM2NjIzMjQ4NDky/img_6014.jpg] Despite going a vanilla 2-2-0 on the road trip, you can’t really point to many instances or segments where Florida played poorly. We’ll see how that translates to their next few games on home ice. Here are Sunday’s takeaways: NOT THEIR NIGHT The Panthers seemed to have the right amount of energy and juice to start the game, but for some reason it just always felt as though they were fighting an uphill battle. It’s never a good feeling leaving the rink without the two points, especially when there was such a mouth-watering opportunity on the table. Florida had been so solid on the second night of back-to-backs, but now they’ve dropped two straight, and both games are ones where they actually played pretty well. “It looked like our game in LA,” said Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice. “There's lots that you would like about the game, it got away from us in the third, chasing it a little bit, but yeah, it would have been something to be able to come out…we came out right, I thought, I like the way that looked. Hands weren't really working for us too well tonight, but they tried to compete, and then Lundell scores a goal, I think that we're back in the game a little bit, and didn't happen for us.” LINE CHANGES About midway through Sunday’s game, Maurice made some changes to Florida’s forward lines. Carter Verhaeghe was moved back up to the top line with Sasha Barkov and Sam Reinhart and Matthew Tkachuk joined Sam Bennett and Mackie Samoskevich on the second line. Anton Lundell centered the familiar winger group of Eetu Luostarinen and Evan Rodrigues while Jesper Boqvist and A.J. Greer flanked Tomas Nosek on the fourth line. These are more familiar line groupings, though one interesting tweak is Samoskevich sticking on that second line. The rookie’s play lately has been quite good, and it would be huge for Florida’s depth if he can maintain a top-six level. As for Maurice, he didn’t make much of his line-shifting decision when asked about it postgame. “We had some guys that were fairly fresh from last night and some guys that could skate,” Maurice said. “I thought we looked a little slow in certain parts.” HAPPY TO HEAD HOME One thing everyone on the team can feel good about is that they get to spend the next week at home. Getting back into those familiar routines and sleeping in their own beds will be a nice break from the recent travel-filled schedule Florida has endured. Of course the back-to-back issue isn’t going anywhere. “I’m glad it's over,” Maurice said of the road trip. “When we go .500 we're not going to brag about that, but we've been .500 for a month and we just played 16 road games, and back-to-backs are a challenge for us we're going to deal with with the rest of the rest of the year, so we want to keep these games tight. We were able to do that for the most part. I don't think we got outshot tonight, so I don't think we got necessarily outplayed, we got out-hands’ed, and we were a little behind it, and some of our decision making, that was it.” LATEST STORIES FROM THE HOCKEY NEWS - FLORIDA Panthers close road trip with 4-1 loss to Vegas [https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/florida-panthers/game-day/panthers-close-road-trip-with-4-1-loss-to-vegas] Three takeaways: Impact of Aaron Ekblad's return, a blowout that nearly wasn't [https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/florida-panthers/latest-news/three-takeaways-impact-of-aaron-ekblads-return-a-blowout-that-nearly-wasnt] Panthers wrap up road trip with business trip to Vegas [https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/florida-panthers/game-day/panthers-wrap-up-road-trip-with-business-trip-to-vegas] Tkackuk, Panthers dominant in 7-2 victory over San Jose [https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/florida-panthers/game-day/tkackuk-panthers-dominant-in-7-2-victory-over-san-jose] Panthers road trip continues in San Jose against sinking Sharks [https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/florida-panthers/game-day/panthers-road-trip-continues-in-san-jose-against-sinking-sharks] Image [https://thehockeynews.com/.image/c_fit,h_600,w_600/MjAxNjQxMjA5NjI4NzMxMDIz/unnamed.jpg]
