When the Florida Panthers hit the ice, goals follow.
No team in the NHL scores more of them on average. Combined with a middle-of-the-pack defense, the Panthers have more total goals than any league club. Some nights they look like potential Stanley Cup champions who overwhelm their foes. On others, they desperately try to outscore their way out of trouble.
They’re a lot of things, but they’re never boring.
“It’s always fun when you win,” interim coach Andrew Brunette said, “but there are certain nights, when it’s a little bit …”
Brunette points to his head.
“There’s more gray hair coming around here every day for a reason. But I’m a fan of the game and I love to watch it. It’s great for the fans. We’re an entertaining team,” he said.
Through 51 games, the Panthers averaged 4.12 goals, the only team in the NHL to put up more than four goals per game. They’ve done so with a power play that’s just 14th in the NHL (20.8%) because they’re a stellar 5-on-5 team: 146 goals scored, 19 more than the next highest team, the Carolina Hurricanes.
“That’s the juggernaut team for me,” Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “They’re hitting it now. That management team’s done a great job in how they’ve assembled that team. There are no weaknesses. They play to their identity. You’re going to get a high-octane team. You gotta be on your toes or they’re going to make you pay.”
Back in the 1980s, it was said the Wayne Gretzky-led Edmonton Oilers would intimidate teams through the stats sheet, even before stepping on the ice with them.
“[We’re] not like the Oilers. No one’s like the Oilers,” Brunette said. “But when we get in our building and start rolling line after line, with the pace we play at, I think we put a little bit of fear in their eyes when they come in.”
As Brind’Amour put it: “A fun team to watch. Not so much to play against.”
The Panthers paradox is that they can be every bit the steamroller Brind’Amour makes them out to be this season — they’ve beaten his Hurricanes all three times they’ve played them, with a plus-5 goal differential — and then they have games like Tuesday night’s loss against the Nashville Predators. They took a 3-1 lead in the second period. They squandered it in a 37-second stretch in that frame. They eventually lost 6-4 to a Predators team that started backup goalie David Rittich.
Florida defenseman Radko Gudas said that “obviously, there are some things we need to take care of” as the season progresses.
“In the third period, we’re maybe gambling too much. We don’t make the easy play out. We’re trying to make something fancy,” Gudas said. “We have to take a look at ourselves. It’s not something major or alarming, but it’s one of those games we have to learn from.”
Forward Jonathan Huberdeau said part of that education is knowing that the Panthers can’t simply rely on their high-octane offense.
“We love scoring goals. We know we can score goals. But defensively, it’s a place where we want to be better. We don’t want to win games 8-5 every night,” he told ESPN.
“It’s tough when you get ahead by four or five goals. It’s tough to play more defensively. You start cheating [defensively] and stuff like that. If we score four in the first period, that’s obviously what we want. But those games aren’t going to happen all the time.”
Huberdeau knows that better than most.
Huberdeau was drafted third overall by the Panthers in 2011, behind Ryan Nugent-Hopkins by the Oilers and Gabriel Landeskog by the Colorado Avalanche. He entered the NHL the following season as a 19-year-old and won the Calder Trophy as the top rookie in a 48-game, lockout-shortened campaign.
He’s played in 16 playoff games in 10 NHL seasons, including a four-game loss in the qualification round of the 2020 summer “bubble” postseason. As a franchise, the Panthers haven’t advanced past the opening round of the playoffs since the last time they were in the Stanley Cup Final in 1996 — when Huberdeau was 3 years old.
“We obviously had some years where we didn’t win that many games. But ownership stuck with the players, even when we weren’t winning. Now, it’s our turn to show them that they picked the right players,” Huberdeau said.
Help arrived for Huberdeau in 2013, when the Panthers drafted center Aleksander Barkov with the second overall pick, right behind Avalanche star Nathan MacKinnon.
“Barky’s such a good player and a great person,” Huberdeau said. “He’s all about work ethic. He works so hard. He’s dedicated to the game. We get along. We still don’t understand each other in the language part, but we’re working on it.”
For many years, the two would play in the same frequently dominant line, sometimes out of necessity. It’s a tribute to the team’s depth that it has been able to establish its own scoring lines this season, playing only 106 minutes together at 5-on-5.
“They play really well together, but the depth on our team to have them on two different lines is a real luxury to have,” said Brunette, who took over the Panthers’ bench in October 2021 when Joel Quenneville resigned in the aftermath of the Chicago Blackhawks‘ player abuse investigation.
Brunette said the two stars have a “friendly rivalry,” which is something Huberdeau acknowledged. “He pushes me every day. He’s so good and watching him makes me want to be better,” he said.
They’re different players — Huberdeau as a playmaking winger, Barkov as a two-way center who won his first Selke Trophy last season — and different people.
“Barky’s like a quiet guy, obviously. But he got funnier throughout the year — you know, sneaky funny?” Huberdeau said. “Me, I’m a little louder. Like to have fun. But we get along.”
Huberdeau has been louder on the scoresheet this season. After Tuesday night’s games, Huberdeau led the NHL with 72 points, one more than Connor McDavid of the Oilers. He’s a country mile ahead of the next leading scorer on the Panthers: Sam Reinhart, acquired from the Buffalo Sabres in the offseason, with 49 points.
The 28-year-old forward has entered the MVP conversation for the first time in his career.
“I’ve never been nominated for the Hart or anything. But this year I stepped up my game. I’m playing better defensively as well. Just trying to help the team,” Huberdeau said. “I don’t really care about the trophies. I haven’t won a playoff round yet. That’s my goal for this year.”
With a roster centered on Huberdeau, Barkov and defenseman Aaron Ekblad — all top-three picks in the draft — the Panthers have a strong foundation on which to build toward that goal.
At least one notable rival has taken notice of their potential.
“It’s been fun to follow their development as a team,” said Victor Hedman of the Tampa Bay Lightning. “The last month has been ridiculous with the amount of goals that they’ve scored.”
Hedman arrived with the Lightning in 2009, having been selected second overall in the previous summer’s draft. He joined a fellow 19-year-old in the roster: Steven Stamkos, who was the first overall pick in the 2008 draft.
The Lightning were in a rut, having failed to win a playoff series since winning the Stanley Cup in 2004. In fact, they wouldn’t win one until 2011, during an expected trip to the Cup Final.
When Hedman sees the Panthers, he sees Huberdeau and Barkov as proxies for himself and Stamkos — star players who thrived through the bad times and now have their shot with a contender.
“That’s what you have to go through. Well, not everybody goes through it — you have guys like [Tyler] Seguin who win the Cup in their first year,” said Hedman, smiling. “But [the Panthers] have been building for a long time. They’re a very, very good team.”
Hedman went as far as to call the Panthers “a phenomenal team.” He praised their forward depth, which GM Bill Zito has bolstered with names like Reinhart, Sam Bennett, Anthony Duclair, Patric Hornqvist and Carter Verhaeghe during his time at the helm. He praised their defense, with names like Ekblad, Gudas, MacKenzie Weegar and Brandon Montour. He shouted out their “great goaltending” with Sergei Bobrovsky in the midst of a resurgent season.
“It’s just a lot of fun playing against those guys,” Hedman said.
Last season, the Lightning and the Panthers met in the playoffs for the first time in their respective franchise’s histories. The result was a six-game thriller that may have been the best series of the entire postseason. The apex was Game 3, which included a six-goal second period and an overtime win for the Panthers against the eventual Stanley Cup champions.
But more than that, the competitive footing between the franchises sparked previously unforeseen animosity between them.
“You look at the playoffs last year, especially the first few games, it was mayhem out there,” Hedman said. “I think we need that for hockey to grow in Florida.”
The Lightning have grown their fan base with a combination of exciting offensive players and consistent postseason success. The Panthers have one, but not the other. Huberdeau hopes they can change that.
“The next part of the season is going to be the most fun,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what you did before. You put yourself in a great position in the standings, but it gets harder and harder. In the playoffs, anything can happen. You see every team that gets in … you can be first or you can be eighth and you can win the Stanley Cup.”
It’s good to have goals. And the Florida Panthers have more than anyone this season.