Arrogance or softness? Paul Maurice, Florida Panthers search for answers

It is difficult to recall such a pair of lackluster efforts by the Florida Panthers in the Paul Maurice era than the back-to-back duds at Ottawa and Pittsburgh.

And rarely has the coach offered such a blunt postmortem as after the 4-0 loss to the Penguins on Thursday.

"I don't know if it’s where on the spectrum of arrogance and softness that I've allowed to creep into our game,” Maurice said. “I'm going to find out here in a couple days on that."

Whether an attitude adjustment or a shakeup on the ice, the Panthers have until Sunday afternoon when a four-game trip continues at Chicago to plot a way out of their funk.

“I just need to get their attention,” Maurice said, likely foreshadowing a vigorous practice on Saturday.

Curiously, the Panthers’ first shutout loss of the season, which came on the heels of a humbling 5-1 defeat in Brady Tkachuk’s return to Ottawa on Wednesday, followed their best offensive surge of the season.

Panthers' drought follows scoring spree

They scored 18 goals in consecutive wins against Columbus, Vancouver and Seattle (the latter two at home), including four hat tricks by three players. Worth noting that Columbus and Vancouver are last in their respective conferences and are a combined minus-30 in goal differential.

It has been difficult to get a handle on this Panthers team considering the challenge of their schedule during the opening month. By the time they finish this trip Tuesday at Winnipeg, they will have played 10 of their first 13 games on the road.

They managed to earn at least a point in all four games on an arduous season-opening odyssey that began against reigning Stanley Cup champion Carolina followed by three stops on the West Coast. All were low-scoring games, three of them decided in overtime.

An oddity of that trip was that the Panthers never had an in-game lead until the final 8 ½ minutes of the fourth game, a 2-1 win at Los Angeles.

Except for a 7-3 win last week at Columbus, goals have been tough to come by on the road for the Panthers so far.

Playing from behind stymies Panthers

Now, except for a brief lead on Brady Thachuk’s power-play goal in the first period at Ottawa, they have spent most of the 120 minutes of this trip playing from behind.

“Not a recipe for success at all. It’s too hard to chase a game,” forward Matthew Tkachuk said. “Every team’s too good with the lead. ... Eventually it catches up to you and you’re not able to get any points out of it.”

The Panthers are playing without starting goaltender Jacob Markstrom, expected to miss a couple weeks with an upper-body injury after getting hit by a puck Monday in practice.

Akira Schmid had a shaky outing at Ottawa, and his stats (3.62 GGA, .867 save percentage) don’t inspire confidence. Rookie Cooper Black was good enough in his NHL debut at Pittsburgh (18 saves on 21 shots), given better support.

“Very difficult to win hockey games in this league where your team scores zero in front of you and gets what it deserves,” Maurice said. “So I was fine with him for his first game.”

Among the factors that continue to stymie the Panthers is they lead the league in penalty minutes. They are one of the better teams at 5-on-5, but two often they are playing a man short.

Panthers’ power play remains inconsistent

On the flip side, they have drawn the most penalties. But their power play has been erratic. They opened the season 1-for-28 with the advantage, then scored on nine of their next 20 chances.

At Pittsburgh, they came up empty on all four power-play chances, including a four-minute double-minor.

Eleven games into the season at 5-4-2, it is early to declare the Panthers’ run of success under Maurice, which included three consecutive trips to the Stanley Cup Final and two championships, as over.

It’s not too early for soul-searching.

Asked what needs to be fixed, Matthew Tkachuk said, “It’s honestly everything. It’s puck play, it’s decision making, not really playing to our identity right now. And we have to get back to our identity.

“We can't have success playing any other way than the way we know how to. And it’s line after line. It’s setting up the next line. It’s just not the way these last two [games] weren't. We were playing good going into it.”

Panthers seeking finishing touch

But there have been concerning signs. Too many nights they have been a step slow against younger, up-and-coming teams. That is reflected in NHL Edge-tracking showing the Panthers ranked 30th in maximum skating speed.

Meanwhile, they are third in offensive zone time at 43.2 percent. So perhaps their struggles are more about finishing and consistency.

Tkachuk said, “I’m sure there’s talk a little bit about don't think about the games before and all the goals we put up [last week] because that’s not normal in the way we play. We win the 2-1, 1-0 type of games. And I don't know, maybe we’re thinking that the offense is going to come easy because it did a few games. Or it didn't come easy, but it came. But we got our stuff handed to us these last two.

“It’s frustrating and we’ve got to figure it out.”