SUNRISE — The Florida Panthers are a shell, literally and figuratively, of their former selves right now.
Yes, the NHL’s two-time defending Stanley Cup champions sit in last place in the Eastern Conference standings.
Go ahead and look.
Paul Maurice suggests his battered and bruised team do the same.
“I don’t mind them looking at the standings,’’ Maurice said. “Keep the urgency. We can sit here and say ‘we have lots of hockey left and we have had to crawl back from nine,’ but that was with a healthy lineup. That’s hard to do. I don’t mind them looking at it, have acceptance of perspective.
“You have to accept where you are at, and we are on the outside looking in. We may have a few games in hand, but we need to win those games in hand. The perspective is, we have to crawl out of this. We’re not going to turn this into a full sprint. We just don’t have that.’’
Maurice’s comments came not too long after a fourth loss in five games, this one 4-1 to the Toronto Maple Leafs which put the Panthers at the bottom of the conference standings 25 games into their season.
Florida is without not only some of its best players, but some of its best complimentary players as well.
To paraphrase what Maurice said earlier in his postgame comments, the Panthers have little margin for error in the games they are playing.
One mistake seems to end up in the back of the net; comebacks that this team is used to coming up with have not been coming.
It is December and Florida is a ways away from being in a playoff spot.
No one, as they say, feels sorry for them.
On the contrary.
After going to the Stanley Cup Final the past three seasons and winning it over the past two, the hockey world outside of South Florida is more likely to be rubbing their hands in anticipation over the Panthers current struggles than rooting for them to storm back.
“There’s some frustration, for sure,’’ said Sam Reinhart, who scored Florida’s lone goal Tuesday on a shorthanded chance in the second period.
“A lot of things have gone right for us the past few years, and that certainly adds to it. We have been in this position before, but it’s going to be the guys in the room — and the guys who are healthy — that are going to get us out of this. The compete, the work is there. We’re just going to find a way to stick with it and start getting some points.’’
The Panthers have not made excuses for their start to the season and have tried not to use all of their injuries as a crutch.
But the losses to the team have been massive.
And, really, no help is coming.
Matthew Tkachuk and Eetu Luostarinen could be back in the lineup later this month, but others — especially Sasha Barkov — are not returning any time soon.
The Panthers had been doing a good job of keeping their feet churning to stay above the water line, but lately, they appear to be going under.
As Maurice alluded to, Florida has gotten off to rough starts before and rebounded.
But, that was with most of their top players getting back into a groove.
Tuesday against the Leafs, Florida’s missing personnel were sorely missed.
Toronto jumped out to a 2-0 start despite Florida’s initial push and, yes, Reinhart got them back into it on a nice effort from Anton Lundell while killing off a power play.
But even some heroics from Sergei Bobrovsky could not help Florida come any closer than 2-1.
“Ideally, you let him make one big save [for us] to turn it around,’’ Reinhart said, “but he was having to make three or four. That’s what he constantly does as the games go on. … The production wasn’t there to back it up.’’
A desperation heave from old pal Steven Lorentz toward the net went off the skates of Aaron Ekblad and ended up in the back of the net to restore Toronto’s lead to 2 late in the third.
The Panthers just did not have much more to offer.
“Things aren’t going our way at the moment, but we have a good group of guys, you know?’’ Bobrovsky said. “We have a good team, we have good coaches. We believe in each other.”
Maurice knows when to get on his team, as he did on the bench in the first, and when to try and coax what he can out of them.
With Nashville, Columbus, and the Islanders coming up to end what has been a terrible homestand thus far, perhaps the Panthers can get back to feeling good about themselves enough to end this slide and get back to being themselves.
Maurice said, as was the case in previous home losses to Philadelphia and Calgary, there were nice pieces of the Florida game to feel good about.
The results? Not so much.
“There’s a good time to whip your team,’’ Maurice said, “and there’s a good time to rally them.
“We’re in rally mode now.’’
ON DECK: GAME No. 26
NASHVILLE PREDATORS at FLORIDA PANTHERS
