Florida Panthers Continue Murky Stretch with 3-1 Loss to Blackhawks

Paul Maurice called Thursday’s game against the Chicago Blackhawks one people would incorrectly assign it a “hangover loss” before the season started. But it might just be with the team’s run of form.

The Florida Panthers might need to order some electrolyte pills in bulk when they get home from this nightmare of a two-game road trip.

Florida fell 3-1 to the NHL-worst Chicago Blackhawks, and they never truly looked like themselves in the process.

The Panthers fell victim to a slew of turnovers, the power play looked stagnant and the penalty kill continued to struggle as the Blackhawks walked their way to victory.

Sure, at the start of the season coach Paul Maurice identified this game as one the Panthers had lost in the past two years that could be incorrectly identified as a “Stanley Cup hangover loss,” but when it’s your fourth regulation loss in the past five games and the third where the team was not playing up to standard, it could be time to ponder it.

The game’s ending tells the story pretty plainly.

Florida was able to generate a few chances after pulling Spencer Knight for the extra attacker with 2:19 to go, but that quickly went sour when Carter Verhaeghe turned the puck over right in front of the yawning cage and watched Nick Foligno put the game away with a minute left on the clock.

That was one of a few glaring errors from Verhaeghe and that second line, who have been going through some serious woes as of late.

On Thursday night, Verhaeghe was a minus-2 to pile onto his team-worst mark os minus-12 on the season.

And things started off just as turbulent for the Panthers that night.

Niko Mikkola took an interference penalty 1:47 into the game and the penalty kill could not do much to help.

Just under a minute into the man advantage, Tuevo Teravainen was left wide-open to bang home a Tyler Bertuzzi rebound to put Chicago ahead 2:46 into the game.

Craig Smith extended Chicago’s lead to 2-0 near the midway point of the second period with a backhand move on a breakaway after Pat Maroon hit him with a stretch pass while he was wide-open near the blue line.

Uvis Balinskis, who had been usurped of his role on the top power play unit by Aaron Ekblad, was late on the backcheck and Smith made the Panthers pay for that.

Sam Reinhart wired a wrist shot from point off the crossbar and in to bring the Panthers back within a goal 34 seconds later, but that was all they could generate.

Florida had a power play opportunity near the midway point of the third period, but came up empty after putting two shots on net. And after piling on 15 shots to Chicago’s six, Petr Mrazek shut the door on them.

Their pushback was too little, too late and they suffered yet another gut-wrenching loss because of it.

Of course, there is not too much of a need to panic — Florida still ranks second in the Atlantic Division with a three-goal cushion over the Tampa Bay Lightning for that spot — but there is one concerning stat at play:

0-7-0 — Florida’s record when trailing after two periods of play.

Eventually, when the going gets tough and the adversity piles on in a game, the Panthers are going to have to provide pushback to win games in April, May and June. Granted, they are well aware of that — especially after winning a Stanley Cup — and could very well turn it on at any moment.

It just has not been happening lately.

If it turns into a habit, it could very well become a concern, but that remains to be seen.

The Panthers have their work cut out for them now.

In their next five games, the Panthers will play against teams populating postseason spots — the Colorado Avalanche, the Washington Capitals, the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Carolina Hurricanes, twice — and how they fare during that stretch will dictate how this particular group can handle adversity.

There have been a lot of holes and issues that were not present last year —the bottom pair has been hit or miss, looking rock solid during the seven-game winning streak but really tapering off during this rough stretch — and the Panthers have suddenly had issues getting depth scoring.

Reinhart has been lighting the world on fire during his 12-game point streak, and that alone has been enough for them to win games, but not all the time. During that stretch, the Panthers are going to need more from further down the lineup.

Even if this is not the hangover loss, it might be time to start having that conversation soon.