In a season full of promise and hope, the Florida Panthers failed to deliver their side of the agreement, missing out on the playoffs once again.
It’s been quite the season for the Florida Panthers, filled with lots of ups and downs, but more downs. In their last three games, the Panthers have conceded a whopping twenty goals.
But really, that’s besides the point. More importantly, the Cats entered this season with the full expectation of finally jumping that hurdle and getting themselves where they needed to be: the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Once again, though, the Panthers found themselves looking from the outside in, as they burned yet another year off their core’s team-friendly deals.
But how did this all occur? It must’ve started from somewhere, right? Answer: yet another slow start. That’s exactly what occurred last season (2017-18), where the Panthers missed out on playoff action by a single point.
This season, however, it’s not even close. The Panthers sit twelve points out from the last wild-card spot with zero games in hand.
Of course, the season is over and the Cats are officially eliminated from playoff contention, so there’s no use complaining about it.
But in a season where the Panthers came in with essentially more depth and with an actual goal scorer in forward Mike Hoffman, you’d think that the Panthers would this time make the jump.
Although, one area of concern that needed to be addressed last summer and wasn’t, was a big reason why the Panthers missed out on the postseason once again.
If you haven’t guessed what, it’s goaltending. The Cats came into the year riding the same goalie tandem in Roberto Luongo and James Reimer. There are two reasons why this blew up in their faces.
1). Luongo came into the season at the age of 39, with multiple injuries added to his already-long list. For anyone who’s seen how this has played out, surely you weren’t surprised to see him go down for the time he did. FLA’s ‘No. 1’ couldn’t actually be relied on as a true ‘No. 1’.
2). While Reimer can avoid the injury bug in a better fashion than his teammate, he struggles with what’s called ‘inconsistency.’ There are some games where he’s good, and others where he’s not. Between his awful rebound control and inconsistency in goal, the Panthers can’t rely on James to step in for Luongo semi full-time.
Surely, though, there must be other problems that affected the Panthers’ chances of making the postseason. In addition to goaltending, the Panthers’ blueline wasn’t any better: in some respects, it was actually worse.
Between all three pairings, I think it’s safe to admit that the Panthers need to tear it down at the back and completely rebuild. Yandle and Ekblad both need new partners, while Matheson needs someone who can shelter him.
The Pysyk experiment needs to officially come to an end. It’s time to move on and replace him outright with someone who can play competently in a top-four role. Weegar and McCoshen can remain as the two on the third pairing, while Brown et al. will have to fight for their spot in a rotation role.
This summer, it’s critical that Dale not only addresses these two primary concerns but that he also finds the right player personnel to implement the proper systems.
Effectively, Bob Boughner’s job should be on the line as well as Jack Capuano’s. Boughner has shown no capability in understanding basic matchups and usage, as well as line creation too.
Capuano, on the other hand, has done an outright poor job on the defensive end, failing to provide the defense with a system that they could not only comprehend but one that would translate well onto the ice.
Ideally, Tallon has a lot of work to do this summer and his job (among others) is certainly not out of reach of being in jeopardy.
Time will only tell if things will be different this time; last time we were in this position, Tallon patched up a couple of sinking holes, hoping everything would stick. We know how that turned out in the end…
In short, I’ll believe that change is coming when I personally see it and when the results show on the ice. Because as far as I’m concerned, there’s always a chance that this season could repeat itself next year.