The Florida Panthers arrive at Thursday night’s matchup with the Vancouver Canucks looking a whole lot more dangerous on special teams than they did just a few days ago.
When they left town last Sunday, Florida owned the NHL’s worst power play. Since then, the Panthers have flipped that script in a hurry.
After putting together a clunky 3.6 percent success rate on Monday, they climbed to 18.4 percent by the time this latest stretch was over, thanks to a sharp surge against Columbus and Buffalo. Florida’s lone power play goal in its first 28 chances gave way to a much better 6-for-10 run in those two games.
That uptick came with some timely production from Brady Tkachuk and Sam Reinhart, who each snapped out of their scoring drought in a big way with four goals over the past two games.
Now the Canucks come to Sunrise carrying a five-game losing streak, and they arrive with plenty of issues of their own. Vancouver finished last season dead last in the NHL with 58 points, and most projections have them near the bottom again. That’s a far cry from the team that topped the Pacific Division with 109 points just two seasons ago.
The offense has not done much to change that outlook. Vancouver finished 31st in the league last year at 2.56 goals per game, and while the top line of Jake DeBrusk, Elias Pettersson and Brock Boeser is still intact, the scoring depth behind it remains shaky. DeBrusk and Boeser were the team’s only 20-goal scorers last season, finishing with 23 and 22.
The problems don’t stop there. Vancouver’s defense was a mess last season, ranking 32nd in the NHL with a 3.83 team goals-against average. The forced trade of Quinn Hughes to Minnesota in mid-season only made things worse.
In net, Thatcher Demko is still working his way back from hip surgery and is expected to return around the end of the calendar year. Kevin Lankinen has handled much of the workload over the past two seasons, but his play dipped last year. He has started five of Vancouver’s eight games this season and carries a 6.88/.786 line.
Leevi Meriläinen, a preseason waiver claim and former Ottawa farmhand, has been the better option so far. He owns a 2.40/.926 in three starts and stopped 35 shots in Tuesday’s 3-2 loss to the Islanders. Vancouver erased a 2-0 first-period deficit to tie it, but Kyle Palmieri scored the winner in the third.
Behind the bench, Manny Malhotra knows the organization as well as anyone. The freshman coach spent three seasons as an assistant with Vancouver, two more with its AHL club, and three seasons of his 17-year NHL career there as a player.
“We know we’re capable of tilting the ice,’’ he said after Tuesday’s loss. “We know we’re capable of playing much better.
It’s a matter of putting the 60-minute effort together. For me that’s the long and short of it.”
Florida, meanwhile, has had Vancouver’s number only rarely. The Panthers have lost five of the past six meetings with the Canucks, including all four during the two Stanley Cup championship seasons.
Thursday’s game is set for 7 p.m. at Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise. The Panthers and Canucks meet again on Jan. 9 in Vancouver. Last season, the teams split their two meetings, and all-time in the regular season Vancouver leads 22-14-4, with six ties.
Florida returns to action Saturday against the Seattle Kraken at 6 p.m.
In Other News...
Tkachuk Brothers Are Giving Panthers Fans A Dangerous New Reason To Dream
Brady Tkachuk has long been the kind of player the Panthers would love to build around, but watching him skate alongside Matthew in Florida has added a new layer to the conversation. The brothers have shown obvious chemistry as linemates, and Bradys latest outburst, a four-hat-trick type of night in his career, only sharpened the sense that this pairing can tilt the ice in ways few teams can match. For Panthers fans, it is the sort of star-driven wrinkle that feels even more tantalizing when layered onto a roster that already knows what it takes to win.
Paul Maurice has taken notice of what Brady has brought so far, and the fit is easy to appreciate from Floridas side. Brady arrived with the rsum of a former Ottawa captain and, before this move, was viewed as someone who preferred a U.S. destination, which only makes the Panthers landing spot feel more intriguing in hindsight. With a two-time Stanley Cup champion team now getting a closer look at the Tkachuk connection, the bigger question is how far this brother act can keep carrying the intrigue. [Read more 🡒]
Panthers Return Home With A Chance To Keep The Surge Going
Florida gets back to Amerant Bank Arena on Saturday night with a chance to build on the kind of response that can reset a young season. The Panthers snapped a two-game skid with a 7-3 win over Columbus, a result that brought some needed pace and production back to a lineup that looked much sharper in its most recent outing. It also marks only their second home game of the season, so the building should have a little extra weight to it as the team tries to settle in.
The opponent brings its own urgency, even if the results have been hard to find. Vancouver comes in as part of a long road trip and has dropped five straight, which puts even more pressure on the Canucks to steady themselves before the trip gets any longer. For Florida, this is the sort of early-season measuring stick that can say plenty about whether the surge is real, and whether the Panthers can keep squeezing points out of a stretch that now shifts back to South Florida. [Read more 🡒]