Florida Panthers Porous Penalty Kill Cost Game Against Detroit

SUNRISE, Fla — The Florida Panthers should be happy with their five-on-five play on Thursday night. Unfortunately for them, they spent a good portion of the game on the penalty kill against one of the best power play teams in the league, the Detroit Red Wings, and it cost them.

Thursday’s 5-2 loss to Detroit was the latest in a string of weird and frustrating games for the Panthers, who are now 4-6-1 in their last 11.

Penalty kill issues

The Red Wings came into Thursday with the second-best power play in the league with a 28.1 percent success rate. Missing key penalty killer Aaron Ekblad with an undisclosed injury, the Panthers had a lot of ground to make up for when down a man.

It didn’t help that they gave Detroit four power plays. The Red Wings capitalized on three of them.

Even more frustrating, two of those penalties came in the offensive zone, with Jesper Boqvist and Evan Rodrigues each going to the box for tripping.

“We’ve got to stay out of the box,” Rodrigues said. “I think the past six, seven games, we’ve been taking quite a few penalties. It cost us tonight. But I think our I think even-strength we played well. I just think special teams kind of won them the game today.”

The Panthers had 2.91 expected goals on when playing five-on-five, compared to Detroit’s 0.93, according to Natural Stat Trick.

A tale of two game states pic.twitter.com/cOfZvHky7T

— 🏆- Jacob @ PantherPourri, a @FlaHockeyNow Podcast (@PTPJacob) January 17, 2025

Good reset early

Panthers head coach Paul Maurice put the lines in a blender against the New Jersey Devils on Tuesday night. On Thursday, he put them back to a relative normal, with the exception of Rodrigues playing with the fourth line and Mackie Samoskevich moving to the second.

Maybe the Panthers forwards seeing different guys skating next to them for 60 minutes in Newark reset their game.

In the first five minutes of Thursday’s loss, the Panthers had three shots on goal, with two more shots fired off the post. 

Florida broke into the net about halfway through the opening frame when Anton Lundell tapped in a rebound in front of the net from Carter Verhaeghe. The Panthers had 18 scoring chances in the first 20 minutes, with six of them being high-danger according to Natural Stat Trick. Lundell himself had three-high of those high-danger chances. 

That third line of Verhaeghe, Lundell, and Boqvist have combined for eight goals in nine games since being grouped together.

The Panthers weren’t able to roll their lines as much in the second period with the four combined penalties, although they did score a goal when Samoskevich delivered a cross-ice pass to Rodrigues, who wristed it into the net from the right faceoff circle.

They peppered Detroit goaltender Cam Talbot in the third,  putting up 23 shots on goal to Detroit’s five, along with 10 high-danger scoring chances. Talbot stopped all of them.

“I liked our energy when we came out,” Maurice said. “Our physicality, our focus. We get into the second period, (Red Wings) score, (Panthers) answer back, they score again. That’s both in the first 10 minutes. And I think that took a little bit of life out of our game. And then when it goes to 4-2, now you’re behind it.”

Bobrovsky pulled

Panthers goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky was pulled after allowing his fourth goal of the game with 4:19 left in the second period. Spencer Knight made four saves in relief.

“Some nights, the guys get unlucky in the net,” Maurice said. “And when you get two deflections like that — he’s right, his positioning is solid, and then it just comes through him on the last one, it’s not his night. You’re looking for a little change, little bit of time on the bench. But not a reflection, certainly, how I feel about him or how he plays for us.”