The same themes occur in another contest for the Florida Panthers, but in this one, they fail to generate any offense against a subpar team.
Another day, another Florida Panthers loss. It’s becoming evident that this team is just disinterested in competing at all. The morale of this team has hit rock bottom and the coaching staff has done nothing to address it.
The Panthers got off to a pretty decent start, but they failed to test Jacob Markstrom. The shots they did get through on goal were weak and were shots that Markstrom had no trouble handling.
Much throughout the season, the Panthers have relied heavily on their top six to carry the offense. While they’ve gotten little sparks out of their third line – other than their top line as of late – the rest hasn’t been able to generate a thing.
As the game progressed, the Panthers’ creativity weakened. In this outing, even the first line couldn’t sustain any time in the Canucks’ zone. It took two periods for Aleksander Barkov to get a shot on goal, which is quite the rare siting.
I mean, the entire game was owned by the Canucks offensively, as they dictated much of the play throughout the entirety of the game. I can’t quite say the same for the Panthers, as their offensive game was dull and beaten by a heavily mediocre side.
Not too many have touched on this point, but being one of the few to address this now, the Panthers just don’t do a good enough job of generating high-quality scoring chances, let alone quality shots.
The offense this year has been the least of the Panthers’ worries. Actually, it’s been one of the lone bright spots in this horrible campaign, along with the power play.
But even so, much of the Panthers’ success offensively is masked by the top six and their power play… which again, is heavily utilized by players that are in their top six.
Through even strength (5v5), the Cats are worse and as you can see here, much of their shots are coming from odd and bad angles, which explains Markstrom’s solid night.
Don’t get me wrong, Markstrom isn’t a bad goaltender, but by no means is he a top netminder in this league who is hard to beat. The Panthers, in the past, have had success against their former netminder, but last night, that wasn’t quite the case.
Defensively, the Cats weren’t any better, committing the same turnovers and defensive errors all night long. But there’s no surprise to that, they’ve done that all year, and it likely isn’t going to stop, either.
Realistically, you aren’t going to win too many games playing like this. But last I checked, this team hasn’t won a single game in 2019 and they’ve shown no signs of improvement since their first loss in the new year to Buffalo.
It’s embarrassing and tiresome going over the same issues night after night. What’s also embarrassing is how the team’s top players have developed a disinterest over the last few games.
Unfortunately, management has shown no willingness to change or at the very least to make any changes to try to salvage the season. Instead, they’ve stuck with what they’ve got, which has gotten them nowhere but the bottom.
It’s going to be a long ride the rest of the way if the Panthers continue down this road. Coaching has done very little to solve this dilemma, and for that, should be held primarily responsible.
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