The Florida Panthers’ last season came to a premature end largely because of the abysmal play of their power play.
Five months later, not much has changed. The Panthers entered Tuesday with the fourth worst power-play percentage in the league and it got even worse in a 4-2 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks.
Florida got 8:25 of power-play time — including 1:35 of 5-on-3 action — in a 10-minute stretch in the second period and the Blackhawks killed it all off and then, with a chance to complete a three-goal comeback in the third period, Florida failed another in the final seven minutes to stall its comeback bid in Chicago.
The Panthers managed just four shots on goal during the extended run of extra-man opportunities in the second period and two of those came with the 5-on-3 advantage. On their final chance, they didn’t test Blackhawks goaltender Alex Stalock once.
Florida (4-2-1) is now just 2 of 33 on the power play this season and both goals came in the same game against the Philadelphia Flyers last week.
The Panthers went into the first intermission down 2-0 after Chicago scored a power-play goal in the first three minutes — Florida also entered the day as the second most penalized team in the NHL — and superstar right wing Patrick Kane tacked on another with 22.4 seconds left in the first period.
The opening period, however, was mostly even, with both teams putting seven shots on goal and the Panthers generating 10 scoring chances to the Blackhawks’ three. Florida was positioned well to stage a comeback in Chicago, especially once the power plays started coming.
Center Eetu Luostarinen created the first, slicing through a pair of defenders and drawing a high stick from Blackhawks defenseman Jake McCabe. When blood started to drip off Luostarinen’s nose, the officials upgraded the penalty to a double minor and the Panthers started their four-minute power play.
It ended after only two shots for Florida and just as many for Chicago, and the next few opportunities didn’t go any better. The Panthers’ next power play — coming just nine seconds after the first one ended — didn’t yield a single shot and neither did the next 25 seconds of 5-on-4 action. Florida only managed two more shots on goal when it got a 5-on-3 advantage for more than a minute and a half.
The crowd of 12,859 at the United Center rose to give the Blackhawks a standing ovation and some Panthers bickered on the ice after wasting nearly nine minutes of extra-man opportunities.
A few minutes later, All-Star right wing Matthew Tkachuk went to the penalty box for holding McCabe’s stick and Chicago added another insurance goal four seconds after its power play ended to push its lead to 3-0 at the end of the second period.
Florida tried some desperation tactics in the third period, like sticking Tkachuk and star center Aleksander Barkov together on the top line, but it wasn’t enough, even after Luostarinen and Tkachuk scored 1:14 apart in the last nine minutes. Another awful power play stymied the comeback and the Blackhawks wrapped up the win with an empty-net goal in the last minute.
