FHN Today: Florida Panthers Hope Day of Rest Helps

Florida Panthers coach Paul Maurice was asked in his postgame press conference about his team’s upcoming opponent.

Maurice waved it off.

The Panthers, coming off a stretch of playing five games in eight days with stops in Seattle, Winnipeg, Sunrise and Tampa, were getting a much needed day off on Monday and Maurice did not want his team thinking about the Columbus Blue Jackets or what transpired over the past couple of days.

“I want them to go home and I don’t want them thinking about hockey,’’ said Maurice, whose team has lost its past two games and three of four going into tonight’s game against the Jackets.

“We’ll start off in a couple of days. I don’t want them taking it home.”

The Panthers looked like they was running on empty in the third period against the Lightning on Saturday and did not fill up the tank before being run by the Kraken the following night.

Perhaps having a night off before a week which will see them play twice at home (Columbus and Pittsburgh) before traveling to Newark and Boston.

FLORIDA HOCKEY NOW

The Panthers have lost their past two games and are averaging just over a point per game through their first 29 games after losing to the Kraken on Sunday night.

So what’s going on?

Sasha Barkov says there are no excuses, but the Panthers have been going through some things. This was a tough week and playing three games in four days coming off a five-day road trip would tax many teams.

— The Panthers have been getting a lot of help from the Charlotte Checkers as both Zac Dalpe and Chris Tierney have two goals since coming up.‘

— With the Panthers having Monday off, you can still check out Sunday’s postgame reactions on the FHN YouTube Channel from Maurice, Eric Staal, Sergei Bobrovsky and Matt Kiersted.

Check out all of our FHN videos RIGHT HERE or just click on the videos below and enjoy them when you want to.

NATIONAL HOCKEY NOW

It looked like the Pittsburgh Penguins were going to overtime on Monday night against Dallas — but then Evgeni Malkin scored in the final minute to give them a 2-1 win.

— Man, it was a perfect road game for the Dallas Stars up until that.

— The Montreal Canadiens beat the Flames 2-1 but saw Cole Caufield get knocked out.

— Jaromir Jagr still has it.

— Calgary Flames star Jonathan Huberdeau always enjoys playing at home in Montreal.

PANTHERS ON DECK

COLUMBUS BLUE JACKETS AT FLORIDA PANTHERS

• When: Tuesday, 7 p.m.
• Where: FLA Live Arena, Sunrise
• Streaming ONLY: ESPN+/Hulu
• Radio: WQAM 560-AM; WBZT 1230-AM (Palm Beach); WCTH 100.3-FM (Florida Keys); SiriusXM
• Panthers Radio Streaming: SiriusXM 932
• Season Series (Columbus leads 1-0): Blue Jackets 5, Panthers 3 (Nov. 20)
• Last season: Florida won 2-1
• All-time regular season series: Florida leads 19-16-10