On their way to winning the Presidents’ Trophy last season as the NHL’s top team in the regular season, the Florida Panthers showed their knack for winning in come-from-behind fashion. The “Comeback Cats” were feisty when trailing late in games, with no deficit seemingly too much to overcome.
At the halfway mark of the 2022-23 season, the Panthers find themselves in need of one of those comebacks they were so accustomed to making just a year ago.
And this isn’t referring just to an isolated game setting — although showing they can win after falling behind on a given night would be nice, too.
No. This is referring to their season as a whole. Florida’s final 41 games, starting Tuesday on the road against the defending Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche, is essentially one big comeback bid for the Panthers to keep their playoff hopes alive after a first half of the season filled with missed opportunities and, in turn, a spiral in the standings.
Florida is 18-19-4 at the halfway mark of the season, fifth in the eight-team Atlantic Division.
Now, to be fair, a drop off of some level was expected this season after they went 58-18-6 and racked up 122 points before their season ended in the second round of the playoffs.
But this? A sub-.500 points percentage midway through a season for the first time since 2017-2018? This wasn’t expected.
“We’re not where we want to be,” Panthers star center and captain Aleksander Barkov told reporters after Florida’s 5-1 loss at the Dallas Stars on Sunday.
They enter Monday six points behind the Pittsburgh Penguins (20-13-6, 46 points) for the second Eastern Conference wild card spot, and Pittsburgh has played two fewer games than Florida. Two other teams are also between Florida and Pittsburgh in the standings — the New York Islanders (22-17-2, 46 points in 41 games) and Buffalo Sabres (20-15-2, 42 points in 37 games).
The Panthers technically have three months to mount their comeback, although their fate will likely be known by the All-Star Break after their January slate ends.
The problem? Comebacks haven’t been second nature for the Panthers just one season after it was one of their strengths.
In the 2021-2022 season, the Panthers went 11-16-1 when trailing after two periods. The 11 comeback wins when trailing entering the third period led the league and marked just the seventh time since the 2005-06 season that a team had that many wins after trailing through two periods.
Through 41 games this season, the Panthers have trailed going into the third period 16 times.
Their record in those 16 games? 0-15-1, with the only point picked up coming in a shootout loss to the Calgary Flames on Nov. 19.
Florida is one of three teams this season without a comeback win when trailing after two periods. The other two are teams currently in playoff position: The 25-9-7 Toronto Maple Leafs that is second in the Atlantic Division and a 19-14-8 Calgary team that currently holds the top wild card spot in the Western Conference. It’s worth noting that those two teams have entered the third period with a deficit a combined 17 times, or one more than the Panthers overall.
“We haven’t had comebacks this year,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said Sunday, “so I don’t know if there’s a lot of faith that we can.”
That lack of late-game success stems from overall third-period struggles. Florida has outscored its opponents by five goal in the first period (40-35) and three goals in the second period (47-44).
The third period? They are being outscored 58-45, a whopping minus-13 goal differential. Remove empty-net goals from the equation (Florida has given up 11 and scored eight), and the third-period deficit is still minus-10 (47-37).
The Panthers, for good measure, have also been outscored 3-0 in the three-on-three overtime period.
“We just have to understand that the 60-minute game is a hard, hard game to play,” Maurice said. “If you’re waiting for something unusual or something fancy to happen to get you going, you’re gonna be waiting a long time because the National Hockey League picks up as the season goes. It doesn’t slow down.”
Do the Panthers have what it takes to pick things up as the second half of their season begins? The NHL isn’t slowing down to find out. The Panthers are on the clock.
