Panthers facing 'fear' as injuries pile up early in season

DETROIT -- Fear.

Paul Maurice mentioned it even before the Florida Panthers lost 4-1 to the Detroit Red Wings at Little Caesars Arena on Wednesday, dropping their second straight game on the road after winning three straight at home to open the season.

“I don’t have the right word, but fear helps,” the coach said. “That’s part of it.”

The Panthers are back-to-back Stanley Cup champions. They’re trying to become the first team to win the Cup three years in a row since the New York Islanders won four straight from 1980-83.

But their list of long-term injuries keeps growing, and they play in the competitive Atlantic Division. They cannot afford to be overconfident, thinking they can coast until the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

They play at the New Jersey Devils on Thursday (7 p.m. ET; SCRIPPS, MSGSN), then at the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday and the Boston Bruins on Tuesday.

“I don’t feel there’s any arrogance in our room about how easy this should be because we won last year,” Maurice said. “I don’t know that it’s fear. But there’s a focus, and we need it.”

Florida has a list of reasons to struggle.

The Panthers are coming off three straight appearances in the Stanley Cup Final. Not only does that create wear and tear, but how do you get up to play regular-season games when the playoffs are what matters? How do you get up to play in October when April, May and June are so far away?

Meanwhile, opponents are getting up to play the two-time defending champs.

“My summer was, how do I get these guys back focused on the hard?” Maurice said. “Well, the injuries happened. Now everybody’s focused because we need to [be].”

Aleksander Barkov, the captain and No. 1 center, is out 7-9 months with a knee injury. Forward Matthew Tkachuk, the emotional leader, is out until at least December with a torn adductor muscle. That’s two of the best players in the NHL.

Center Tomas Nosek also is out with an undisclosed long-term injury, and Maurice announced defenseman Dmitry Kulikov had surgery Wednesday to repair a labral tear and will be out five months. That’s two key role players.

“You don’t replace these guys that you have out of the lineup,” Maurice said. “The weight doesn’t get heavier. You just have fewer guys to lift, right?”

The good news is that the Panthers still have a lot of guys, and they know how to play under Maurice, who is starting his fourth season in Florida.

Of the 19 players on the ice Wednesday, 15 appeared in the Cup Final last season. That included goalie Sergei Bobrovsky; defensemen Aaron Ekblad, Gustav Forsling and Seth Jones; and forwards Sam Bennett, Anton Lundell, Brad Marchand, Sam Reinhart and Carter Verhaeghe. That’s still not too shabby.

Of the four who didn’t appear in the Cup Final last season, two have plenty of experience with the Panthers. Defenseman Uvis Balinskis played 76 games in the regular season and five in the playoffs last season. Forward Mackie Samoskevich played 72 games in the regular season and four in the playoffs.

The only newcomers were forward Luke Kunin and defenseman Jeff Petry.

“I just think we have a deep squad, and everyone knows the system and buys into the system, and that’s the key,” Forsling said.

Ekblad said that “bringing intensity to the system every night” is the challenge.

“It’s easier said than done, but it’s our job to bring it,” he said. “There’s a lot of veteran leadership in this room that understands how to bring it and when to bring it. Yeah, I think obviously there’s points in an 82-game season where you’re not going to have it or you’re going to have an injury or something where you can’t do everything possible, but you’re still trying to do as much as you can any given night.”

There is a misconception, at least on the outside.

“We don’t peak for the playoffs,” Maurice said. “That’s not what we’re trying to do. As a matter of fact, it’s the opposite. You look at our last two Marches, they are uninspiring.”

The Panthers had a 1-5-1 slump in March in 2023-24. They went 4-8-1 from March 11 to April 6 last season.

“We’re just trying to play as hard as we can so that when we get to the playoffs, we have invested enough hard that you don’t want to let it slip away,” Maurice said. “The idea of timing it, it doesn’t work for us. We wouldn’t be able to do that, certainly now. None of these guys are going to be back for five months, so no sense waiting.”

There is nothing positive about playing without Barkov, Tkachuk and company, unless the Panthers can learn to win without them.

“The silver lining is, you potentially become bulletproof to injuries in the playoffs if you can figure out how to survive this now,” Maurice said. “That’s the only thing we get out of this, because we’re going to have to scratch and claw to make the playoffs, because the division is that good.”