RALEIGH, N.C. – With a few key players missing from their lineup, the Florida Panthers ended their road trip with a 4-0 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes at PNC Arena on Thursday.
Bitten by the injury bug, top-pair defenseman Aaron Ekblad, third-line winger Evan Rodrigues and second-line center Sam Bennett all sat out the game for the Panthers.
Still, they aren’t going to make excuses.
“You’ve got a couple of new guys in and a couple of guys out, so it’s a little disjointed, but that’s just standard operating procedure in the NHL,” Panthers head coach Paul Maurice said. “You always have three or four guys that are either banged up or out, so I don’t think that’s a factor in our game.”
Splitting their two-game trip after coming from behind to stun the Dallas Stars in the first game on Tuesday, the Panthers still remain atop the standings in the NHL at 45-18-4.
Winners in 18 of their last 22 games, tonight’s loss was just their fourth since Jan. 22.
“What happens is you go 18-3 and you have this expectation that you’re just going to win every game and if you don’t something’s wrong,” Maurice said. “They had a good second, they got ahead of us and that was it. We just didn’t move the puck well as a group tonight.”
After more than 19 minutes of exciting back-and-forth action that featured two key penalty kills for the Panthers, the Hurricanes broke the ice when Seth Jarvis ripped a shot into the top right corner of the cage from the center of the left circle to make it 1-0 at 19:20 of the first period.
A bright spot in defeat, Florida’s penalty kill went a perfect 4-for-4.
“It was good,” said Panthers forward Kevin Stenlund, who led the team with 6:43 of shorthanded ice time. “They got a couple chances, but overall I think we were fast [on the penalty kill].”
In the second period, the Hurricanes doubled their advantage when Martin Necas tracked down a rebound in the right circle and blasted a shot past Bobrovsky to make it 2-0 at 2:46.
Acquired from the Washington Capitals at last week's trade deadline, Evgeny Kuznetsov tacked on another goal – his first with the Hurricanes – when he took a pass from Jalen Chatfield, picked his spot and buried a wrister from the left circle to make it 3-0 at 8:27.
Keeping the Cats off the board in the middle frame, Frederik Andersen, suiting up in just his third game since returning from LTIR, brought fans to their feet with a last-ditch paddle save on Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov.
Andersen finished with 21 saves; Bobrovsky stopped 31 of 34 shots.
Grinding down their depleted opponents, the Hurricanes led the Panthers in scoring chances in all three periods, finishing with a 29-16 edge, per NaturalStatTrick.com.
“I think they were a little bit quicker,” Panthers forward Sam Reinhart said. “They were above pucks a little more than us."
With 4:18 left in regulation, Andrei Svechnikov made it 4-0 with an empty-net goal.
Not dwelling too much on defeat, the Panthers are already looking ahead to the next game.
“I didn’t think we moved the puck very well in the second period,” Maurice said. “I liked our first an awful lot, down one and not worried about it. We had some pucks come into our end that we didn’t transition out. Maybe [get] a little sharper with that. I thought we got behind the play a little bit. In the second period, it got away from us.”
THEY SAID IT
“I think, overall, they were a little harder on pucks and faster than us today. It’s a new game on Saturday. Just going to forget about it and move on.” – Kevin Stenlund
“Don’t love the game. They won it. Move on.” – Paul Maurice
“You know mentally going into it that it’s going to be a tight-checking affair. It’s so important. They were able to extend [the lead] and take momentum into the second period.” – Sam Reinhart
CATS STATS
- Carter Verhaeghe had a team-high five hits.
- Josh Mahura blocked a team-high three shots.
- Sergei Bobrovsky made five high-danger saves, per NaturalStatTrick.com.
- Oliver Ekman-Larsson led the Panthers with 6:50 of ice time on the penalty kill.
- The Panthers led 11-8 in shot attempts when Matthew Tkachuk was on the ice at 5-on-5.
- Florida was outshot 12-4 in the third period.
WHAT’S NEXT?
Who’s ready for a rivalry game?
Looking for some cooking back in South Florida, the Panthers will face off against the Tampa Bay Lightning (35-25-6) at Amerant Bank Arena on Saturday at 6 p.m. ET.
For tickets, click HERE.
