Barkov returns, but Florida Panthers shut out by Winnipeg Jets. Takeaways from the loss
Not even captain and top-line center Aleksander Barkov’s return to the lineup could fix the Florida Panthers’ woes on Friday against the Winnipeg Jets. The team was sluggish out of the gate and never fully found its stride.
The result: A 3-0 shutout loss to the Jets at Amerant Bank Arena — Florida’s first shutout loss at home since Feb. 24, 2021, when they were blanked 3-0 by the Dallas Stars. That’s a span of 109 regular-season home games in which the Panthers scored at least one goal.
Winnipeg’s Connor Hellebuyck was perfect in net, stopping all 32 shots he faced for his first shutout of the season and 33rd of his career.
“We were not at our best from the start,” said Barkov, who missed the past two games before returning Friday. “Obviously tried to do everything we could, but they played really well defensively. Their goalie was really good. I don’t think we had enough guys at the net for rebounds. It was a tight game the whole game.”
Paul Maurice had a much simpler assessment.
“We were horse[expletive] tonight,” the coach said.
Florida (12-7-1) went 1-2-0 on the homestand, opening with a 5-3 win over the Edmonton Oilers on Monday before falling 3-1 to the Boston Bruins on Wednesday and dropping the finale on Friday against Winnipeg (12-5-2).
It’s the first time this season the Panthers have lost consecutive games at home.
Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 29 of 31 shots he faced, giving up goals to Nino Niederreiter with 2:17 left in the first period and Nikolaj Ehlers with 8:45 left to play. Adam Lowry added an empty-net goal with 3:49 left to play.
As for the offense, most of Florida’s shots on net were low-danger. Only six of 32 shots Hellebuyck faced were classified as high-danger by Natural Stat Trick. The Panthers only had two shots on goal off the rush and only five off rebounds.
“We did some strange things tonight,” Maurice said. “We had breakaways that we passed off and open plays that we decided not to hit. The positive is that when your whole group is that bad, it’s fixable. It’s not something systemic that we’ve seen for a long time.”
Here are three takeaways from the game.
A look at Barkov’s return
Barkov led Florida forwards in ice time (19:39) but took just one shot on goal on Friday, with three other shot attempts missing the net and two more getting blocked. He was 9 for 18 in the faceoff circle and logged two hits.
He had missed the first two games of the homestand after taking a knee-to-knee hit in the Panthers’ 2-1 win over the Anaheim Ducks on Nov. 17.
“Happy to be back that quick,” said Barkov, who is tied for second on the team with 17 points (six goals, 11 assists). “Our trainers did an unbelievable job to get me back out there right away on the ice and ready for the game. I was happy to be out there.”
Barkov went back to his normal spot on Florida’s top line with Evan Rodrigues and Sam Reinhart on the wings. That moved Anton Lundell back to the Panthers’ third line between Eetu Luostarinen and Nick Cousins.
The second line of Sam Bennett centering Carter Verhaeghe and Matthew Tkachuk remained the same, while Kevin Stenlund moved back to the fourth line with Jonah Gadjovich and Ryan Lomberg on his wings.
A change of the power play
With the Panthers’ power play struggling through the first quarter of the season, coach Paul Maurice tweaked his two units.
The top group consisted of Barkov, Sam Reinhart, Sam Bennett, Matthew Tkachuk and defenseman Brandon Montour. The second unit had forwards Anton Lundell, Carter Verhaeghe and Evan Rodrigues along with defensemen Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Aaron Ekblad.
The Panthers entered Friday ranked 23rd out of 32 teams with a 16.1-percent success rate on the power play.
“Our expected goals is real nice, but we’re not scoring anything on our power play,” Maruice said. “I don’t think we can assess tonight because it looked like the rest of our game.”
Off to Canada
The Panthers are off for the weekend before traveling to Canada to play three games in four days.
The road trip starts with a back-to-back Monday against the Ottawa Senators and Tuesday against the Toronto Maple Leafs. It ends Thursday against the Montreal Canadiens. All three games are scheduled for a 7 p.m. puck drop.
Florida has yet to play Ottawa or Montreal this season but won its first game of the season against Toronto 3-1 on Oct. 19 in Sunrise.
