Panthers have been a ‘well-oiled machine’ to start season. Can it continue on the road?

By Jordan McPherson
October 13, 2025 10:41 AM

Just about everything went right for the Florida Panthers on their season-opening homestand. The defense was stellar. Special teams was nearly perfect. Goaltending was superb. Scoring came from up and down the lineup. Puck possession and shot attempts was largely one-sided in favor of Florida. It all led to a perfect 3-0-0 start, with a 3-2 win over the Chicago Blackhawks on Tuesday, 2-1 win over the Philadelphia Flyers on Thursday and 6-2 rout of the Ottawa Senators on Saturday at Amerant Bank Arena. “We’re a well-oiled machine,’’ defenseman Aaron Ekblad said postgame Saturday. “We feel good about our game to start. Obviously, we have a set of rules that we try to adhere to on a daily basis and try to bring to our game every day.”

Now, the Panthers are tasked with brining their game on their first road trip of the season. Florida plays five consecutive games away from home over nine days, starting Monday against the Flyers. The rest of the trip includes Florida’s first of 13 back-to-backs of the season when it plays Detroit and New Jersey on Wednesday and Thursday, a Saturday matinee against the Buffalo Sabres, and wraps up with the Boston Bruins on Oct. 21. Panthers coach Paul Maurice knows there’s a lot of good that has come to the start of this season, especially with Florida playing without so many key players (forwards Aleksander Barkov, Matthew Tkachuk and Tomas Nosek plus defenseman Dmitry Kulikov are all on injured reserve).

But he also understands their success this season needs to span beyond one homestand at the start of the season. “I’m fine with that,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. “Like it is just three games, but we couldn’t do any more than we did. We’re not exuberant about our start, but we understand the start. These are the things that we did well. We got three wins.”

Those things Florida did well on its three-game homestand: The Panthers led their three opponents in combined shot attempts 186-136, outscored them 11-5 and had a 91-56 advantage in scoring chances. Florida’s 57.76 Corsi-For rate (the Panthers’ total shot attempts compared to the opponent’s) is the fifth highest in the NHL through the first week of the season. Florida was perfect on the penalty kill (7 for 7) and has scored on 41.7% of its power play opportunities (5 for 12). Nine players have scored at least one goal, 14 have produced at least one point and no one has more than three points. Even without Barkov and Tkachuk, who run so much of what Florida does, the Panthers’ season has gone off without a hitch. Having minimal turnover — only two players who have seen action so far this season in fourth-line center Luke Kunin and third pair defenseman Jeff Petry are new to the team — helps with that. “We have so much confidence in every single one of these guys,’’ forward Mackie Samoskevich said. “We learned so much from last year, we basically have the same team, so it’s obviously nice to have that. [There was] so much we learned from last year that I think we just kind of know what to do.” That includes knowing how to win on the road. Florida has gone 65-49-9 on the road in the regular season — and a whopping 25-11 in the playoffs — under Maurice. The team’s defense-first game and simple style he implemented after taking over playing well regardless of the venue.

“We’re playing good games in our structure,” said goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky, who had a .925 save percentage through the first three games. “It was good wins. Just excited to get on the road.”