From 9 points out to the postseason, Panthers clinch playoff spot in final week of season
The Florida Panthers’ team-wide group chat was quiet for most of Tuesday — it was a complete and total day off, after all — until the final seconds ticked away in the Blackhawks’ stunning upset of the Penguins in Pittsburgh and then everyone’s phones started buzzing.
It was cause for at least a little bit of celebration: Florida was officially headed to the 2023 Stanley Cup playoffs.
“After it was over, there was a big splash in the group chat,” defenseman Radko Gudas said. “Now the fun part starts.”
An often-frustrating season for the Panthers will end in the Stanley Cup playoffs after all after they clinched their spot in the postseason on their day off. Losses by the Sabres and Penguins got Florida into the Cup playoffs with a game to spare — an ultimately surprising ending to a topsy-turvy, constantly befuddling season in Florida.
The Panthers, who won the Presidents’ Trophy last year, sat nine points out of playoff position during the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve before rallying once the calendar flipped to 2023 to make the playoffs for the third straight season — fourth straight, if counting the 2020 Stanley Cup playoffs, which were expanded because of the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It was a little relief. We’ve been battling or a long time,” All-Star center Aleksander Barkov said. “We’ve been playing really hard. We got what we wanted, we got we deserved, but now it’s time to get ready.”
Florida (42-31-8) still could have something to play for in its regular-season finale with the Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday, though. The Panthers are only a point ahead of the Islanders for the top wild card and may need to beat the Hurricanes (51-21-9) in Sunrise to avoid a first-round matchup with the league-best Bruins.
Florida, however, will know whether it’s a must-win situation by the time the puck drops at 7 p.m. at FLA Live Arena. New York closes out its regular season Wednesday at home against the lowly Canadiens and a loss by the Islanders would lock the Panthers into the top wild card.
If the Islanders win, Florida will treat its regular-season finale like any other game, trying to win to improve its seeding.
“We will try to finish as far up in the standings as we possibly can,” coach Paul Maurice said.
If New York loses, “that would change things,” Maurice said, and the Panthers will potentially rest some of their stars.
Florida signed defenseman Mike Benning to a three-year, entry-level contract Wednesday after he wrapped up his junior season at Denver and the rookie could be an option to make his debut Thursday. Center Sam Bennett will also remain out, still progressing slower than the Panthers would like in his return from a soft-tissue injury and now just trying to be back for the playoffs.
“He hasn’t progressed as fast as we want,” Maurice said. “That still doesn’t necessarily keep him out, but we need the next three or four days to see an upswing.”
Make no mistake: This was not supposed to be as difficult as it was. Maurice admitted as much in the preseason when he compared this group to teams he coached in the past where “our biggest challenge each year is, Could we make the playoffs?”
This team had greater aspirations, even though everyone knew an offseason coaching change and blockbuster trade would mean some sort of adjustment period. It was never supposed to get as dire as it did in the winter, when injuries and illnesses piled up to leave the Panthers as much as nine points out of a postseason spot near the midway point of the season.
The turnaround started right after New Year’s Day, when Florida won 8 of 14 to go into the All-Star break, even though nine of those were on the road and six were part of back-to-back sets. From there, the Panthers have mostly been the team they expected to be.
They’ve had to treat every game like a must-win, knowing the margin to get into the playoffs would be slim, and it brought out the best in them. Since the 2023 NHL All-Star Game in February, Florida has only lost consecutive games once, and it followed its potentially devastating four-game losing skid with a season-best six-game winning streak and nearly made it seven in a row Monday before losing the Maple Leafs, 2-1, in overtime in South Florida.
A win would have clinched Florida’s spot in the playoffs. Instead, the Panthers had to wait another day and sweat out a surprisingly competitive game in Pittsburgh.
After Buffalo lost to the Stanley Cup-contending Devils in New Jersey, the Penguins and last-place Blackhawks were tied deep into the third period at PPG Paints Arena before Chicago scored twice in 26 seconds in the middle of the third period — with the go-ahead goal coming from Blackhawks right wing Buddy Robinson, scoring only his fourth NHL goal — to finish off Pittsburgh in regulation, locking up the Panthers’ playoff spot.
“We had the belief in this room all the time, even though we had 10 or something points out of the playoffs and everything felt like it was not our season,” Barkov said. “We just battled through.”
