Florida Panthers Got Blown Out Saturday. And? ‘We Won’t Watch It Again’

SUNRISE — There were quite a few similarities from the Florida Panthers previous loss against the Colorado Avalanche and on Saturday against the St. Louis Blues.

The final score in both games was 6-2, the Panthers being on the business end of the blowout.

One came on the road to perhaps the best team in the NHL.

The other came at home to a St. Louis Blues team trying to stay relevant in a Western Conference ruled, it appears, by the Avalanche.

Paul Maurice basically had the same message after both losses.

“You have nights like that in the NHL where you get beat, and you get beat bad,’’ Maurice said after the loss to the Avalanche just over a week ago.

“The mental reset is tomorrow.’’

Maurice added “I won’t look at this game again.’’

What did he say after Saturday’s loss to the Blues?

“We won’t watch it again,” Maurice said, “won’t talk about it again.’’

The Panthers had been on quite a roll.

Florida won three straight before losing in Denver, then the took the next four after the loss.

After losing on Saturday night, the Panthers have still won seven of their past nine — and have points (7-2-1) in eight of 10.

That’s a pretty good run.

And, really, that is all one can ask for from a team that has been to the Stanley Cup Final the past three seasons and are the NHL’s two-time defending champions.

The Panthers got hammered in Colorado, playing the Avalanche a night after winning in the final minute on an Anton Lundell goal in Salt Lake City against the Utah Mammoth.

Saturday, the Panthers played less than 24 hours after throwing everything they had in a historic comeback to beat the Carolina Hurricanes 4-3 in a shootout after trailing 3-0 midway through the third.

Were the Panthers out of gas on Saturday?

Sure looked like it.

It also looked, for a while there, that they were going to pull this thing out and win for the fifth straight time and for the eighth time in nine games.

Only tied 2-2 late in the second, Justin Faulk crushed a rebound off the boards sent in by Jonatan Berggren from the corner behind the net with 0.8 seconds left in the period to give St. Louis a much-needed lift — and a 3-2 lead. 

Florida looked like it was skating in mud for all of a first period in which it trailed just 1-0, but down 2-0 early in the second, the Panthers woke up and threw everything they had at the Blues.

It was 2-2 off goals by A.J. Greer and Sam Reinhart.

Should have been 2-2 going into the third.

Only it was not.

The Blues had a shot of adrenaline off the goal, and came out flying in the third scoring two goals in a span of 51 seconds to break things wide open.

“We need to get into the third at 2s,” Maurice lamented. “Then, we can be real smart about the way we’re playing. It was a tough break. So, that’s it.”

Losses like Saturday happen in a league in which the Panthers had played three games in four nights coming off a road trip.

Florida was flying high after dousing the loss to the Avalanche on a back-to-back set with perhaps its most impressive win of the season against Dallas two nights later.

Saturday, honestly, does not mean a whole lot.

Unless the Panthers let it.

“Maybe it wasn’t our best game,’’ Niko Mikkola said.

No, maybe it was not.

But it is certainly understandible.

The Panthers have a chance to make up for things come Tuesday in North Carolina.

Florida will play its final game before the Christmas break against a Hurricanes team that, one may remember, the Panthers rallied to beat on Friday night in Sunrise.

It was in that win that Florida emptied their proverbial tanks against before playing a rested St. Louis team that did a lot of things right including having Joel Hofer (27 saves) start in net.

Maurice was confident things will look different a few days from now in Raleigh as was the case in Dallas following the blowout loss to the Avs.

“You have a day and a half at home to recover,’’ he said. “We expect to be real good in Carolina.

“We have been really good. I think our last tough one was in Colorado. I understood that one. The previous [tough one] was against Toronto on Dec. 1. So, I like the way we are playing, the way we have played. Not going to tell you I didn’t like the way we played tonight. I understood it. When we’re behind it as a group, that’s it.”

The Panthers already seemed to have moved on from this one.

As they should.

“They had a tough back-to-back, they played at 7 last night and then 6 tonight,” said Blues forward Robert Thomas, who scored the final two goals of the game. “The odds were kind of stacked against them.”

ON DECK: GAME No. 36

FLORIDA PANTHERS at CAROLINA HURRICANES

• When: Tuesday, 7 p.m. 
• Where: Lenovo Center; Raleigh, NC
• Local TV: Scripps Sports — WSFL 39 (Miami/FtL); WHDT 9 (WPB); LAFF 36.3 (SWFla)
• Streaming: Panthers+, ESPN+
• Radio: WQAM; WBZT 1230-AM (Palm Beach); WCTH 100.3-FM (Florida Keys); SiriusXM
• Panthers Radio Streaming: SiriusXM 932, NHL App
• Series Schedule (Florida Leads 1-0) — At Florida: Panthers 4, Hurricanes 3 SO (Friday). At Carolina: Tuesday; Jan. 16 
• Last Regular Season: Panthers Won 2-1
• All-Time Regular Season Series: Carolina/Hartford leads 74-50-10, 11 ties
• Postseason History: Florida 2-0 (d. Carolina in 2023 ECF in 4; 2025 ECF in 5)