Florida Panthers Embark on Five-Game West Coast Road Trip
The Florida Panthers will kick off a five-game West Coast road trip on Tuesday night at 10 p.m. against the Seattle Kraken.
FORT LAUDERDALE — The Florida Panthers are headed out West for one of their longest road trips of the season.
They will kick it off on Tuesday night in Seattle before heading out to Western Canada to knock out match-ups with the Canucks, Oilers and Flames before wrapping it up with a nationally televised clash against the Minnesota Wild.
And they’ll make that journey while playing five games in 10 nights before returning home for a Dec. 20 clash with the St. Louis Blues.
But the Panthers do not have any complaints with the schedule makers about this one.
“You like to start out West and then come back East, so that’s as good as that gets,” coach Paul Maurice said. “We’re happy with this one. It’s the two days off on the road [that get you.] I don’t mind the back-to-back on the road as long as the flight in between isn’t too egregious, it’s when you have the two days on the road when you get stale. And we don’t have that.”
The thing these five teams have in common? They are all in the Western Conference playoff race.
Edmonton, Vancouver and Minnesota are firmly in playoff spots while the Kraken and Flames are the first two teams out of a wild card spot. Calgary is one point behind the Colorado Avalanche for the final spot while Seattle is three points back.
Point is, Florida is going to have to be on its game.
“Heavy schedule with the quality of opponent,” Maurice said. “It’s a trip we only really make once and we’ll have one to the Southern part of the West Coast, so it’s the aberration of your year, but these are good teams.”
After a 1-6-0 stretch where the world “aberration” was used a lot, the Panthers have righted their ship and found their game to a point where they can avoid finding themselves in that same situation as they get through this trip.
Immediately after a skid where the team averaged over five goals against per game in its losses, the Panthers have evened out to an average of 2.50 goals-against per game and an explosion of 5.17 goals-for per game during its six-game point streak it started on Nov. 27.
In that same stretch Florida’s power play has surged to a league-leading 45.8 percent clip.
“Anytime you can win games in a row, it’s awesome,” Carter Verhaeghe said. “It’s a hard thing to do in this league.
“The power play has been good, there are some areas we want to improve on, but we are building our game to a point where we can compete.”