When the Florida Panthers defeated the New York Islanders to end their recent homestand this past Sunday, coach Paul Maurice said his team’s upcoming road trip would be a tough one indeed.
He was right on.
After a hard-fought victory in Utah which came thanks in part to a late Anton Lundell goal, the Panthers were thumped by the Colorado Avalanche.
In Colorado, the Panthers faced a team which holds first in the NHL standings, and which had points in all but two of their 30 games this season.
The Dallas Stars, Florida’s next opponent, are right behind the Avalanche in the standings.
New coach Glen Gulutzan has them at 21-6-5 for 47 points. After the same number of games last season under Pete DeBoer, they were 19-13-0 for 38 points.
On Thursday, Dallas lost to Minnesota but had points in 16 of the previous 17.
The Stars are relatively healthy, although last week Tyler Seguin went on LTIR with an ACL injury.
Even without Seguin, Dallas has plenty of star power.
Jason Robinson has 20 goals, behind only Nathan MacKinnon and Morgan Geekie for the league lead.
Other top sharpshooters with the Stars include Wyatt Johnson and Mikko Rantanen with 16 and 13 goals respectively.
Johnson leads the NHL with 12 power play goals. Dallas has the league’s top power play at 33.0 percent.
Defenseman Miro Heiskanen is behind only Cale Makar and Zach Werenski in scoring by defensemen scoring.
Heiskanen averages a whopping 26:08 of ice time per game.
Goalie Jake Oettenger leads the NHL with 14 wins. He is sporting a .908 save percentage and a 2.51 GAA.
Backup Casey DeSmith played fewer games but has an outstanding .920 save percentage and 2.23 GAA. These are the best numbers of his eight-year NHL career.
By comparison, Sergei Bobrovsky and Daniil Tarasov have a combined .890 save percentage and 2.93 GAA.
Not to be forgotten is our old pal, ex-Panther Alexander Petrovic who worked is way back to the NHL and has been a regular on the Stars’ blueline.
The Panthers took Friday off after Thursday’s loss, with Maurice saying he had no plans to watch the game tape.
There really was not much to see.
With a day in between games, the Panthers should be ready to play tonight in Dallas.
“You have nights like that in the NHL where you get beat,’’ Maurice said, “and get beat bad. That’s the challenge. The mental reset tomorrow.”
Dallas is a team against which you do not want to fall behind.
The Stars are 14-3 when scoring first and 13-0 when taking a lead into the third period.
They are 4-4-3 when trailing after two periods as compared to the Panthers 1-10-1 when trailing after two.
Dallas is a team with few weaknesses.
The Panthers will not have an easy night.
ON DECK: GAME 31
FLORIDA PANTHERS at DALLAS STARS
