Takeaways: Panthers offense struggles, lose 4-1 to Blues

SUNRISE — Florida’s first home game in almost two weeks seemed like a continuation of their last road trip out West. The Panthers had plenty of chances, outshot their opposition, yet they still found themselves with a 4-1 loss to the St. Louis Blues.

The Panthers have dropped four of their last five games, scoring just seven goals over that stretch —  five of which came in the lone win. Florida falls to 18-12-2 on the season.

Here’s tonight’s takeaways. 

Second period Blues

After a scoreless and fairly uneventful opening period, the next twenty minutes of game time was the opposite. 

Jordan Kyrou broke the ice with his seventh goal of the season 4:50 into the second.

On the following shift, Pavel Buchnevich appeared to have doubled the Blues’ lead 23 seconds after Kyrou’s goal. However, after a coach’s challenge the goal was brought back for offsides.

Buchenevich would eventually get his goal at the 7:46 mark of the period — putting the Blues up 2-0.

Eetu Luostarinen got the Panthers first and only goal of the game 13:47 into second off  a dump in, not a shot. Luostarinen’s dump wrapped  off the curved fixture on the glass and into an empty Blues net. Joel Hofer went behind the goal in anticipation of a routine dump in. 

Florida had the deficit down to one and the crowd had finally got into the game — St. Louis didn’t allow that to last long.

Alexey Toropchenko reclaimed the Blues’ two-goal lead with 3:13 left in the second. St. Louis went into the third up 3-1. 

Panthers struggle to score, again

Florida had just one goal on Thursday and it was more of a lucky bounce than anything. 

The Panthers have won just two of 13 games this season where they scored two or less goals. When the Panthers have scored at least three times, they are 16-3. 

“I think we’re getting chances. It’s not going our way,” Luostarinen said. “We’re getting frustrated a little bit… We’re forcing plays and that’s costing us.”

The offensive struggles have been prevalent over the last two weeks, with the Panthers being shutout in back to back games before having another set of consecutive night’s where they scored just once. The only dominant offensive game in the last five came in Edmonton where they put five past Calvin Pickard.

Lines go into a blender, not much helped

Not a lot was going for the Panthers on Thursday, so Paul Maurice threw everything he could in a blender, hoping for something to work. 

Maurice swapped Matthew Tkachuk with Evan Rodrigues on the first line to put him with Barkov, which doesn’t happen all that often. 

“You’re looking for a little bit of a catalyst change, just something [to see] if you can get it going,” Maurice said. “It didn’t make anything better.”

Will Lockwood also made a jump from the fourth line to the third, pushing Nick Cousins down with Lomberg and Lorentz. 

The fourth line actually had the most noticeable impact after the line shuffling. Ryan Lomberg appeared to have cut the Blues two goal lead to just one, 2:30 into the third after he deflected Cousin’s shot past Hofer. But the goal would be waived off due to a high stick. 

St. Louis would close off the game with an empty netter from Pavel Buchnevich — his second goal of the night.

Panthers Notes 

Florida will host the Vegas Golden Knights on Saturday Dec. 23 in a rematch of last season’s Stanley Cup Final.

Florida will hold their first practice at their new practice facility in Fort. Lauderdale on Friday.

Anton Lundell and Jonah Gadjovich both missed Thursday’s game with illness. Lundell hasn’t played in the last four, Gadjovich in the last five.