After falling behind and rallying late in every game on its most recent road trip, the Florida Panthers are hoping to develop a little more consistency on ice moving forward.
Overall, the three-game road swing was a success with the team taking four out of six points against the Buffalo Sabres, New York Islanders and New Jersey Devils. All three contests, though, followed a very similar script. The Panthers would fall behind early, trail entering the third period and then rally late.
In the first two games, Florida battled to force overtime, but was forced to settle for a point after suffering a pair of shootout losses. On Tuesday, Florida took home a regulation victory, scoring five unanswered goals to overcome a 4-1 deficit and top New Jersey.
“Overall play was pretty good,” defenseman Anton Stralman said. “But within every game and there was a big dip in our quality of our game and that’s something we want to fix. We want to play 60-minute games and not drop the second or first period or whatever it may be.
“We want to have a consistent level of play, so that’s something to work on.
Now, the Panthers are trying to take that manic come-front-behind energy and play with it all 60 minutes.
“It’s a tough league to come back in and knowing it’s eventually going to be tough playing catch-up hockey,” coach Joel Quenneville said. “But I really liked how we played especially the last period in Jersey. That might have been our best 20 minutes of the year.
“Finding that consistency and having the puck a little more from start to finish. We’d like to find out how good we can be.”
Off to a 2-2-2 start, avoiding slow starts is key point of emphasis for the team. Through its first six games, Florida has been outscored 8-2 in the first period. While the team is 7-7 in the second, the Panthers hold a 10-7 advantage in the third.
Playing with desperation, the Panthers have tapped into the potential they’re capable of. The question is whether they can sustain that through the entirety of a game.
“I think if you look back at our games, we’re a different team chasing,” Stralman said. “That’s the team we want to be. We don’t want to chase games, but we want to play like that with the lead. We haven’t been able to; it seems like we take the lead and take a step back.
“That’s when you have a chance to bury a team and that’s what you want to do. Especially at home, you want to come out hot, get the lead, play well and defend it. Hopefully you can sustain that throughout the whole game and never feel threatened.”
