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The Florida Panthers snapped a difficult road trip with a much-needed victory at Columbus on Tuesday. Now they face a challenge that has eluded them all season: defeating an opponent within their own division. Florida is 0-4-0 in the Atlantic Division, one of the NHL's most competitive groupings.
The Panthers will have a chance to end that drought Thursday at home against the division's last-place team, the Detroit Red Wings, who arrive in Sunrise riding a four-game losing streak. Detroit's most recent win came at Florida on Nov. 2, when the Red Wings scored three third-period goals. The Panthers will surely be motivated to avenge that collapse, though whether they deliver is far from certain.
This Florida team has been hard to pin down. Despite a star-laden roster, its play has been inconsistent and erratic. The absence of elite forwards Sasha Barkov and Brad Marchand since the opening week has clearly been a major factor. At 10-7-2 and holding the Eastern Conference's second wild-card spot, the Panthers have weathered the injuries reasonably well. However, six of their 10 wins have come against Chicago, Columbus and Winnipeg, teams with a combined 19-30-4 record. Against teams currently in playoff position, Florida is 1-3-1. The lone win was an overtime victory at Carolina on opening night—the only game three-time Selke Trophy winner Barkov played in its entirety. The Panthers also suffered one-sided losses to Boston, Ottawa and Minnesota, and an overtime defeat to Anaheim.
Key Analysis
So how good are these Panthers? Are the two-time champions capable of another serious Stanley Cup run? Or are they, as some suggest, an older team that may no longer have the hunger or the edge? Those questions cannot be answered until Barkov and Marchand return and Florida is playing with a full deck.
As a result, the highlight of the latest road trip—more than the win at Columbus—was that the two veterans, both recovering from leg injuries, were practicing with the team and could be back in the lineup by Thanksgiving, according to coach Paul Maurice. That would be a happy Thanksgiving for Maurice, who frequently emphasizes Barkov's importance to the Panthers at both ends of the ice. "All things considered," Maurice said recently, "There's lots of things that I'm pretty happy with because Barkov has this incredible impact. We would argue that he should be in consideration as the best player in the world on both sides of the puck. But we're closing in on 100 games and he's played one for us, so we just don't look the same."
By that measure, the Panthers haven't been themselves since Barkov skated with the Cup after the 2024-25 Final. He missed all of last season following knee surgery and went down again in the second game of this season at San Jose. The uncertainty about Barkov's impending return is whether he can stay healthy. The same applies to Marchand, who missed the end of last season, had surgery in the summer and then appeared in only two games before getting hurt again.
Without the two stars, the Panthers have remained dangerous but beatable. They are still tough to play but often find themselves playing from behind. The "Comeback Cats" persona has lost some luster as recent rallies have fallen a goal short. There have been positive signs, notably the resurgence of the power play, which has scored in seven of the past eight games. Their 20 power-play goals rank fourth in the NHL and first in the Eastern Conference. Point production has been mostly limited to a small group: Matthew and Brady Tkachuk, Sam Reinhart, Carter Verhaeghe and Seth Jones. But Sam Bennett, after a slow start, has joined the party with four goals in his past five games, including two at Columbus. They need more from players like Anton Lundell and Eetu Luostarinen, who are valuable as penalty killers but haven't progressed as point producers. Lundell showed what he is capable of with a terrific setup for Bennett's first goal against Columbus on a power play, the first of two assists for the 25-year-old center. Likewise, defenseman Aaron Ekblad had two assists, encouraging for a blue line that has generated little offense except for Jones. With a string of tough opponents on the schedule before Barkov's expected return, the mystery Cats will need as many hands pitching in as possible.