Dave Hyde: Do you trust this strong Florida Panthers start to season?

This was Wednesday afternoon, before coach Joel Quenneville saw his Florida Panthers lose to Dallas, and he was asked some watered-down version of the question he’s asked regularly about his team’s start: Does he trust everything he sees?

“I just think we’re pretty consistent in our team game, and that’s what I like about our team so far at the start of the year,” he said.

And then they went out and stayed consistent against Dallas. They just consistently couldn’t get the puck by the star of Wednesday night, Dallas goalie Anton Khudobin.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven straight shots the Panthers had in the second period Wednesday night — and right there, coming on hard, you saw exactly why the creeping question for larger South Florida sports is whether to pay attention to this team.

None of those shots scored. None of their 43 shots in the game did against Khudobin. One game after beating the Stanley Cup finalists last year, the Panthers were shut out for the first time this year, 3-0, heading into Thursday night’s finale of this series.

One night doesn’t change anything — not the Panthers big start or the prime question of whether this is a different team than previous years. This good start offers hope. It brings some fun. It adds a layer of optimism to what could be ahead.

But there are so many involved scars here you need to see more before you get to the bonding agent of trust that cements fans to their teams. Only Florida Panthers fans who have somehow watched through two difficult decades know what it’s like enjoy this start. Only they can catalog if the scars of the past allow them to see a different team that can hold up.

No team in hockey or even much of a deflated South Florida since the turn of the century has been so bad for so long as this franchise. The Dolphins fans haven’t won a playoff game since 2000 — the Panthers fan goes further back.

The Marlins fan can blame the small market and roster implosions — the Panthers fan only has the fallback of ineptitude. The Hurricane football fans can point to what was — the Panthers fan just has the magical year of 1996. (The Heat fan is on a top shelf, alone.)

The Panthers’ start is backed up by the numbers. They entered Wednesday averaging 3.41 goals a game, fifth best in the league. That’s a fraction better than the 3.3 goals averaged last year. But they’re surrendering nearly half-a-goal less this year at 2.77 goals a game to rank 11th in the league. They were third-worst last year in goals allowed (3.25).

How much of that is some new players? And how much is simply the goalie-from-nowhere, Chris Driedger?

Driedger is playing more than the $72 million man in Sergei Bobrovsky. There’s a reason for that, too. He’s playing better. He’s giving up nearly a goal less a game than Bobrovsky this far in the year. He’d won four straight and six of his previous seven until Wednesday night.

You’ve seen this story go either way in sports: The unknown getting a chance and becoming a star; and the unknown shining briefly across the stage before regressing to anonymity. Who knows which way it goes with Driedger?

And who knows if Bobrovsky gets the sent message?

All you know is Wednesday wasn’t the Panthers’ game. Dallas scored 53 seconds in and the Panthers couldn’t catch up against a hot goaltender the rest of the night.

“It wasn’t the same as last game, that’s for sure,” Brett Connolly said. “They played a lot better and we didn’t play our best. We got what we deserved.”

Then he said with an eye on Thursday night’s rematch: “We need to respond.”

“I expected a very dangerous opponent coming out after the last game,” Quenneville said. “They had the response. We expected it. I thought we responded well for what what s going on for a big chunk of the game.”