Calm and Cold for the Florida Panthers on Tuesday Night

SUNRISE — The NHL celebrated one of its ‘Frozen Frenzy’ nights on Tuesday in which all 32 teams were in action. Only for the Florida Panthers, there was simply a sense of tepid tranquility in their game against the Anaheim Ducks.

The Panthers did, of course, get into things as the night progressed.

It did appear that it took them 50 minutes of gametime to do so.

Although the Panthers looked like the better team than the Ducks early on — and, well, they should have — it was Anaheim grabbing a 2-0 lead in the second thanks to a shorthanded goal as well as one while on a 5-on-3 power play.

Florida kicked it into gear midway through the third when Anton Lundell scored, and, ended up having a chance at victory after Sam Reinhart tied it when he deflected Seth Jones’ point shot from in front of the net.

In the end, however, it was Anaheim escaping with a 3-2 victory in the shootout.

The Panthers got a point out of it.

At the end of the day, that seemed like a pretty good outcome.

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“You see one go in and it gave us a little bit of life,” Jones said when asked about Lundell’s opening goal at 11:12 of the third period.

“We got our forecheck going a little bit, turned some pucks over, got skating a little more. We have had trouble kind of putting them in lately. … We get a point out of this game and they all count later in the season. So, that was important.”

Yes, the Panthers would/could/should have gotten no points out of this game.

They know this.

Daniil Tarasov made his third start of the season and remains winless since joining the Panthers.

It does look like the Panthers made the right call in acquiring him from Columbus before he could become a free agent.

Tarasov has been strong in all three of his starts thus far, but he is 0-2-1 thus far despite playing very well in all three.

“That’s the pressure, and we’ve put a lot on him because we haven’t given him anyrun support that’s for sure,” Paul Maurice said. “But, good thing to go through it at the start. He has to stay focused on every shot straight through the entire game, and he goes stretches that Sergei goes through in which a puck just doesn’t go to him. I didn’t think one got to him early in that second period for quite some time. … He’s made some of those saves for us, looked really good in that Jersey game. We’re all learning together.’’

Added Lundell: “We battled, battled hard and Tarasov kept us in that game. Without him, we would have ended with no points. We had our chances, but unfortunately didn’t get that last goal.”

The Panthers have been, and will likely continue to be, guilty of showing malaise as they work through the grind of another 82-game season.

Tuesday night was just that; a Tuesday night in October against a Western Conference team the Panthers will likely not see again after they play them next week in Anaheim.

The crowd was not into Tuesday’s game very much, and the Panthers responded in kind.

It’s fair to say that the Panthers did not give their home crowd much to cheer about.

Passes were all over the place on Tuesday night and, as Jones mentioned, Florida’s heavy forecheck did not show up until late in the game.

The offense has been sticking like a valve on an old Pontiac Grand Prix, with Maurice trying all sorts of combinations to get it running smooth again.

At 5-5-1 through the opening month of the season — Florida does not play again until Dallas comes to town on Nov. 1 — the Panthers have opened a lot like some of us thought they would.

We all expect them to kick it into gear eventually. They probably will.

Tuesday just was not one of those nights where they did so although they were still a goal away from getting two points that may or may not have been deserved.

“We just played with a little bit more energy and we decided to give everything we had,’’ Lundell said after being asked about the latter stages of the third period.

“We weren’t happy with our style of game [early]. It’s a very long process, you want to be better in each period and each game, so that was a good experience again for us today.”

ON DECK: GAME 12

DALLAS STARS at FLORIDA PANTHERS

• When: Saturday, 6
• Where: Amerant Bank Arena, Sunrise
• Local TV: Scripps Sports — WSFL 39 (Miami/FTL); WHDT 9 (WPB); LAFF 36.3 (Naples/FTM)
• Streaming: Panthers+, ESPN+
• Radio: WQAM; WBZT 1230-AM (Palm Beach); WCTH 100.3-FM (Florida Keys); SiriusXM
• Panthers Radio Streaming: SiriusXM 932, NHL App
• Last Season: Florida won 2-0
• This Season — At Florida: Saturday. At Dallas: Dec. 13.
• All-time Regular Season Series: Florida leads 28-21-2, 3 ties
• Up Next for the Panthers: Tuesday at Anaheim Ducks, 10 p.m.