Coach Paul Maurice of the Florida Panthers was blunt in his comments following his team’s 3-0 loss to the Winnipeg Jets on Friday night.Maurice could have surely come up with a lot of justifications.For example, the Jets performed with greater vigor when head coach Rick Bowness took a one-month leave of absence to tend to his sick wife.Then there was Florida’s power play, which is still developing even after Brandon Montour and Aaron Ekblad were brought back.
Oh, and Sasha Barkov, the captain, had recently suffered a knee injury.
Maurice had none of those things on his mind when he talked after the game.
They also shouldn’t have been.
The Jets, who have won eight of the last nine games and five in a row, were just the superior team. Maurice used to play for them.
Quite simply put.
Were the Panthers sleepy due to too much tryptophan?
“There’s factors, not excuses,” Maurice said. “There’s no excuse. We were horseshit tonight.
“The reason is that Winnipeg became energised.” There are fifteen games tonight, and my prediction is that thirteen of the away teams will prevail because the home team will have consumed too much turkey. Tonight, we took a few drumsticks out onto the ice.
The Panthers looked as flat as the beer can your Uncle Rick left on the coffee table while he babbled about the increasing deli prices at Publix after taking a day off for Thanksgiving.
To Maurice’s credit, 13 out of 15 home clubs did not win on Friday.
Put the blame on Thanksgiving?
In total, Florida had 12 high-danger opportunities. Winnipeg had ten.
The Jets ultimately capitalized on that day.
“We waited for our opportunities and took advantage of them,” Connor Hellebuyck, who recorded his first shutout of the year with 32 saves, said. “Three goals won us the game, and I think that’s what everyone is happy about.”
The Jets led 26-25 in scoring opportunities and tied 32-32 in shots, but they had more bodies at the net to clean up, which was the difference. The shots and scoring chances tell a similar narrative.
Simply enough, Florida did not appear to have the same jump as the visitors.
Barkov remarked, “We had shots, we had chances.” However, we lacked second or third players who would have gone to the hoop to put in the rebounds.
As Barkov also pointed out, the Panthers did overindulge in turkey, but there are other troubling aspects of the defeat.
Florida’s offensive performance from Wednesday’s third-period loss to the Boston Bruins was mostly carried over.
In that quarter, the Panthers had eight more opportunities to score than they had shots (6), but they were unable to find a way past the Bruins’ formidable defense.
Similar to that, Winnipeg kept Florida to the outside while letting their best goalie handle the rest.
Indeed, it did not help that the last two opponents, Hellebuyck and Linus Ullmark, were Vezina caliber opponents.
Ryan Lomberg stated, “We played two big goalies back-to-back.” “I believe we had a good number of opportunities in both games; we just need to find the back of the net.”
Winnipeg ultimately scored the goals when it counted most.
With 2:17 remaining in the first quarter, Nino Niederreiter put the Jets up, and Florida was unable to respond.
Neither team broke the deadlock until halfway through the third quarter, when Nikolaj Ehlers struck a goal worthy of a movie trailer.
The Panthers had their opportunities, but it was simply not their night, whether it was lost opportunity after missed chance fluttering away from the net or a normally straightforward pass being broken.
Maurice stated, “Over the 82, you’re going to have some tough firsts, but we’ve been good.”
“We did some odd things tonight, but we were able to rally and come back.” We made the decision to not hit open plays and pass on breakaways. The fact that your entire gang is so awful is a plus. That is reversible. It’s not a systemic issue that has been present in a while.
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