Five Takeaways from Panthers’ loss to Penguins

SUNRISE: The Panthers were back at home on Thursday night to faceoff against the red hot Pittsburgh Penguins, who came to Sunrise riding a six-game win streak.

Backstopped by a strong goaltending performance and a multi-point night from their captain Sidney Crosby, the Penguins defeated the Panthers 4-2, extending their win streak to seven.

Here’s tonight’s takeaways: 

The illness bug continues to bite the Panthers

Injuries aside, because this team is heavily affected by it, the Panthers have been getting hammered by the “non-COVID” illness bug. 

Florida has seen many of their big time players miss time due to illness over the last few weeks. 

Last game Carter Verhaeghe was out of the lineup; Anton Lundell hasn’t played since Dec. 1 in Vancouver, and Spencer Knight just returned to the lineup tonight after nine days. 

The Panthers had to play tonight’s game without their leading scorer Matthew Tkachuk, who is out with… an illness.

Florida had to roll 11 forwards tonight, even with today’s call up of Aleksi Heponiemi. 

Even strength scoring belonged to the Panthers

In a 4-2 loss, Florida came out on top in one category – 5-on-5 goals. 

Both of Florida’s goals tonight came at even-strength. Their opponent on the other hand, didn’t score a single one of their goals at 5-on-5.

All four of the Penguins’ goals came when they were either up a man, or down.

Pittsburgh scored twice on the power play, once shorthanded and iced the game with an empty net goal when Florida had an extra attacker. 

Tonight was a goalie battle

For fans of the man in the crease, this was the game to watch. Pittsburgh’s Tristan Jarry and Florida’s Sergei Bobrovsky both battled hard to keep their team’s in the game.

For the visiting team, Jarry was the star of the game for Pittsburgh. The Pens goaltender had 32 saves on the night and kept the Panthers special teams off the scoresheet. 

Florida had a flurry of good looks in the second period, but Jarry slammed the door shut, as Pittsburgh took that period 2-0. 

On the other end of the ice, Sergei Bobrovsky started his fifth straight game, finishing the night with 35 saves and three goals against, two of which came from a Pittsburgh powerplay. 

Both goaltenders saw multiple odd-man rushes tonight and respectively followed many of those chances with big time saves.  

Ryan Lomberg played a solid game with a depleted forward lineup

Ryan Lomberg always puts in a valiant effort no matter how much ice time he gets. With 11 forwards in the lineup, two of which just came from the AHL over the last few days, the Panthers played Lomberg over 14 minutes tonight.

The 5 ‘9 forward started the game off hot with his linemate Eric Staal. The pair seemed to have a lot of chemistry with each other tonight and it paid off as they connected for the first goal of the game.

A falling Staal was able to get the puck towards goal before Lomberg was able to beat Jarry up high on a tough angle. 

Lomberg plays a fast, hard fore-checking game and tonight it was evident on how much work he does along the boards and corners.

Florida lost the game on special teams

While winning the even strength game tonight, Florida’s downfall was their special teams performance.

With the lineup having so many guys going in and out this week, the Cats had to do lots of line juggling for the special teams units. 

“We have had a different power play unit pretty much every game for the last four,” Panthers head coach Paul Maurcice said. “Start putting that together at five o’clock because the guys are coming to our lineup so late.”

On the penalty kill, Florida conceded two goals as the Penguins finished the night 2/3 on the power play. 

Florida had three power play chances of their own, however not only did they go 0/3 on the  man-advantage, they also gave up a shorthanded goal to Pittsburgh’s Kris Letang, which tied the game at one early in the second period.

The special teams battle killed the Panthers who played a relatively strong even-strength game.