Florida Panthers Shake Off Piling Adversity, Keep On Winning
The Florida Panthers have not only survived without Matthew Tkachuk and Aleksander Barkov, they’ve thrived, going 3-1-1 and gutting out big wins in the process.
SUNRISE, Fla. — No matter how high the mountain of adversity the Florida Panthers have been handed becomes, they have continued to find a way to get over it.
The Panthers have now played five games without both captain Aleksander Barkov (lower-body injury) and star Matthew Tkachuk (illness) and managed to come away with points in four of them (3-1-1).
Prior to the Oct. 12 beatdown that the Buffalo Sabres put on them, they never went without both of those players before in the two and a half years since they acquired Tkachuk from the Calgary Flames. But after taking a quick look in the mirror after that 5-2, they have yet to drop a game in regulation since.
That included a 4-3 overtime win against the Vegas Golden Knights on Saturday they had to grind for while playing one skater short due to an injury to Jonah Gadjovich and salary cap constraints.
“I liked that game tonight an awful lot,” coach Paul Maurice said after the game. “That’s seven [games] in 11 [nights] for us down a guy, they’re a deep team, they got a heavy back end. I thought that was as good of a game as we’ve played this year.”
What has contributed to that success?
“Consistency, a buy-in to the system up and down the lineup, and incredible goaltending,” Aaron Ekblad said. “All the little things you’d expect from a team down two of the best players in the world.”
Those are things that are hard to come by for a team at full-strength, let alone one down the best defensive forward in the world and a firecracker power forward who is a huge driver on offense, but when you have a roster full of guys who know what it takes to win (and did it fairly recently), it comes a bit easier.
And filling their shoes has been a massive group effort.
Anton Lundell has stepped up to fill Barkov’s role on the first line perfectly, notching a point in each of the four games of Florida’s four-game point streak (four goals, three assists) while filling the massive void left on the penalty kill to a tee.
Sam Reinhart has continued to look like a bonafide superstar during this stretch, putting up four goals and 10 points during his active 10-game point streak. He enters Monday tied with New York Rangers star Artemi Panarin for first in the league in points with 12.
A.J. Greer and Jesper Boqvist have both stepped into bigger roles on the penalty kill in Barkov’s absence and have helped the Panthers maintain a 89.5 penalty kill percentage which is tied with the Rangers for fourth in the NHL.
Sergei Bobrovsky made some gargantuan saves to keep the Panthers in the game against Vegas, and throughout that stretch with a 2-0-1 record, while Spencer Knight bounced back from a pedestrian first outing with a 35-save effort in a 4-3 win in Columbus.
“It’s honestly amazing,” Carter Verhaeghe said. “Everyone’s stepping up their game.”
It took a village to get the Panthers to this point.
Seven different players scored goals and eight of them have recorded at least two points in the four games since Oct. 12.
“It feels like every night, someone’s making a big play. I can’t say nothing, but the new guys,” said Verhaeghe, who has yet to score his first goal of the year.
“Like that new third line is amazing, everyone’s been playing so good. All the new defensemen, everyone. So, it’s awesome to see everyone spinning and gelling really well.”
With the Panthers likely to get Tkachuk back on Tuesday night against the Minnesota Wild and Barkov to follow sometime during their three-game trip to New York this week, they will be out of the woods of this injury bug soon.
But they have not only survived, they have thrived in it.
That is a telling sign that this is a team that has championship pedigree and one that is not satisfied with just one Stanley Cup ring in their cupboards.