George Richards, FHN Publisher
Two weeks ago, Florida Panthers coach Andrew Brunette said his team’s performance on the power play had been a concern all season.
His concerns have not been allayed.
The Panthers, when playing with the man advantage, appear to be getting worse.
At least that was the case Friday night in Washington as Florida went 0-for-3 with the extra skater in a 4-3 loss to the Capitals.
Florida not only did not score, but one of Washington’s goals came with Florida having an extra man.
”They are right in your face,” Brunette said. “They play fast hockey and if you start a period sleepy, you’re going to pay the price. We did about five things that were uncharacteristic on that shift there but they scored and opened the floodgate for a little bit.”
Since scoring three goals in the first period of a 5-2 win over the Carolina Hurricanes, the Panthers have found power play goals to be few and far between.
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Florida was 3-for-3 on the power play in that first period against the Hurricanes on Nov. 6.
Since then? Do you really want to know?
Florida has one power play goal since that first period, getting it Wednesday night against the Flyers in a 2-1 overtime win.
The Panthers go into Saturday’s game against the Seattle Kraken riding a 1-for-24 power play streak.
That is not pretty.
So, what’s wrong?
The Panthers, with all of their skill, should be scoring at better than 18 percent — and ranked higher than 18th in the league. That’s how they entered Friday night’s game.
”I think our execution is the problem right now,” Jonathan Huberdeau said. “We all know what to do on the power play. We’ve all played there. It’s not clicking right now. We have too many turnovers and they have chances on the PK. We’re just a little sloppy right now.”
Not having Sasha Barkov out there has not helped, that’s for sure.
The Panthers have been able to survive without their captain in a lot of different areas but the power play has not been one of them.
Barkov is tied for the team lead with Sam Bennett with two power play goals — and that is not a lot.
We’re not saying it is.
But so much runs through Barkov and he salvages so much by keeping the puck in the attacking zone, Florida has certainly missed him.
The Panthers have been getting away from all the pretty passing that seemed to plague them earlier in this power outage and they are trying to get more pucks to the net.
Aaron Ekblad, who runs point, has been unleashing his shot a little bit more. He should continue that. Ekblad’s shot can get through traffic and even if he doesn’t get it all the way through, it allows the Panthers to hop on rebounds and make something happen down low.
Patric Hornqvist, who was back on PP1 on Friday, is a master at creating room in front of the net with the advantage and one of these days, he’s going to get a dirty one.
”On a night like (Friday) when we needed it more, it wasn’t there,” Sam Reinhart said. “And the frustrations lead to trying to do too much.
“Sooner than later we need to get better with that, feel more comfortable in tough positions with the man advantage and hopefully start seeing some results.”