Florida Panthers
Paul Maurice: Florida Panthers ‘Fighting for Our Lives’
The Florida Panthers may be the two-time defending Stanley Cup champions, but Paul Maurice has warned since training camp that distinction is not going to win his team any games in this season.
Especially with so many of his team’s top players not available due to injury.
Following Thursday’s 6-2 loss in Montreal — Florida’s seventh straight loss to the Canadiens since 2024 — Maurice said that while he liked a lot of what the Panthers did, it certainly was not good enough to beat a young, up-and-coming team that took over first place in the division with the win.
Florida outshot the Canadiens 27-19, killed off four penalties and controlled the pace of play from the second period on.
Yet it was the Canadiens who took a 2-0 lead into the first break, led by a pair going into the third, and eased past the Panthers for the second time in just over a week.
Florida allowed just 12 shots on goal while 5-on-5 including just two in the second period.
“I think we gave up 12 even-strength shots tonight, and six went in,’’ Maurice said. “I haven’t seen that before. It’s frustrating because we’re fighting for our lives here but, that’s what we’re going to go through and what teams in the same situation are going to go through.
“There was enough good in that game to have something to build on.’’
Florida, which lost Seth Jones to a collarbone injury last Friday in the Winter Classic, was without Brad Marchand as well on Thursday.
Noah Dobson put the Canadiens up 1-0 early in the game on Montreal’s second shot of the night before Juraj Slafkovsky forced the puck from Jeff Petry behind the net and it found the stick of a a wide-open Oliver Kapanen down low late in the first.
The Panthers came out humming in the second and Sam Bennett made it 2-1 with his first of two, but an Alexandre Texier deflection gave Montreal a 3-1 lead.
Texier scored two more for his first career NHL hat trick.
“We started skating, we started making more plays,’’ Bennett said, “playing with a little more confidence. Sometimes it’s just not enough when you get down too early.’’
By the time Bennett got his second, the Panthers were down 3.
“We had our pushes, and they capitalized when they need to,” Evan Rodrigues said. “It wasn’t good enough. They played a good game, played the right way, made the plays when they were there to be made. … They just played better than us.”
Things are not dire for the Panthers right now, but it sure is starting to feel like it could be soon enough.
The Canadiens, Red Wings, and Lightning are surging right now and there is finally some separation in the Atlantic Division standings.
Which is not good news for the Panthers.
Florida goes into Friday eight points back of the Lightning for third place in the division and three back of the Sabres for the final wild-card spot.
The Panthers do have a lot of divisional games remaining, but they are just 1-3 since the New Year began.
Florida has four more games left in this road trip (the team will return home for a few days in between games in Buffalo and Carolina) which continues Saturday in Ottawa.
The Senators should be a salty bunch after their third straight loss was a Colorado 8-2 special in Denver.
“I don’t think we were confident,’’ Rodrigues said. “We were getting rid of pucks too quickly, weren’t hanging onto it, holding onto our sticks a little bit in the first. In the second, we played better. … I liked our pushback in the second, but we have to play confident, believe in ourselves a little bit more, want the puck on our stick. There’s no point in dwelling on injuries or things that happened in the past.
“We have to believe in ourselves, play confident, and let the results come after that.”
ON DECK: GAME No. 44
FLORIDA PANTHERS at OTTAWA SENATORS
- When: Saturday, 7 p.m.
- Where: Canadian Tire Center, Ottawa
- Local TV: Scripps Sports — WSFL 39 (Miami/FTL); WHDT 9 (WPB); LAFF 36.3 (SWFla)
- Streaming: Panthers+; ESPN+
- Radio: WQAM 560-AM/104.3 FM; WBZT 1230-AM (Palm Beach); WCTH 100.3-FM (Florida Keys); SiriusXM
- Panthers Radio Streaming: SiriusXM 932, NHL App
- Last Season: Senators won 2-1
- This Season (Panthers Lead 1-0) — At Ottawa: Saturday; Ap. 9. At Florida: Panthers 6, Senators 2 (Oct. 11); March 31
- All-time Regular Season Series: Ottawa leads 59-49-5, 3 ties
- Up Next for the Panthers: Monday at Buffalo Sabres, 7
We flat out suck right now. How does a group of guys that won two consecutive cups need to “play with confidence” more? Is that really the reason or are some guys just taking the night off? Look at the box score on any given night and half our guys are invisible.
We have 8 players out with injury. Younger guys need to gain the confidence the veterans have. “Next man up” is a great catch phrase, but in reality it is tough to expect us to look the same with the drastic change in our roster due to injury.
We’ll see if Tarasov starts getting more time in net.
The fact is in years past, when Barkov has missed any time, the team struggled. Also when Bennett has missed time, team struggled. This is first time Chucky has been gone a significant amount of time. But it’s clear that we rely heavily on our top guys. Reinhart and Marchand have been great as has been Bennett but the next tier guys haven’t taken the next step to assume their role as tier 2 level guys. Too inconsistent. And let’s face it, we have played a lot of hockey and guys are just worn out. Asking a lot of this… Read more »
It was a good game, every stanley cup winners go through set backs, no matter if there’s injuries. The only thing I didn’t like was the referees the last 2.5 minutes the referees made 2 bad calls against montreal. That was a clean hard hit by arber xhekaj and the panther jumped arber and that stupid call against Beck for charging when the panther player ran into him. The game commentaire even said it on tv. The panther were frustrated and they tried to cause a scrum. If you to fight arber xhekaj don’t jump him from behind, he’ll won’t… Read more »
It was Dobson who opened the scoring, not Hutson