They need a break.<\/p>\n
You could use one, too.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s exhausting just watching the Florida Panthers play, night after night, with nearly half their team out and the other half doing their admirable best to slip into altered roles like mismatched clothes.<\/p>\n
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It was exactly half the roster out Thursday night, nine of the Florida Panthers\u2019 18 skaters hurt for the final game before the Olympic break against Tampa Bay. For two periods, they competed. But Tampa Bay is 19-1-1 of late. So, the best rivalry in sports predictably took hockey back to the 1970s once the Panthers fell behind 4-0.<\/p>\n
Cheap shots. Fights. Chaos. Referees read the penalty list like medieval friars reading an endless scroll. Even Panthers coach Paul Maurice joined the mayhem in getting ejected.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s nine games in 15 days, and we\u2019ve got nine guys out of our lineup,\u2019\u2019 Maurice said. \u201cWe wore those guys out. Think of minutes Sam Bennett, Sam Reinhart, Niko Mikkola and Gustav Forsling have played. They gave all they have.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maybe all these injuries were payback for the good fortune of the past few seasons. Maybe three straight trips to the Stanley Cup Final and short, summer rests were just too much for their bodies to bear.<\/p>\n
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They played 68 playoff games over the three seasons, nearly an extra season. Throw in this maliciously compacted season to squeeze in the Olympics and the short-term strain on tissue and tendons is something for a research paper.<\/p>\n
The practical cost is easier to see: The two-time champs can play their dominant hearts out and still fall short of the playoffs. They\u2019re in last place in their division, eight points from the last wild-card spot with a boatload of teams to climb over.<\/p>\n
No one is saying it\u2019s over. Not after what this team has come back from at times and accomplished. And allow yourself a dream a moment: Wouldn\u2019t this be a comeback for the ages? If they somehow grab the final playoff spot and play, yep, top seed Tampa Bay in the first round? Sign me up.<\/p>\n
But this Panthers team isn\u2019t the team of the past couple of springs. Not with Aleksander Barkov missing all season, Matthew Tkachuk out until a few weeks ago and defenseman Seth Jones out for a month. Anton Lundell and Brad Marchand are in and out of the lineup. Aaron Ekblad now, too. There are six of your top eight players.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt\u2019s huge for us, much needed,\u2019\u2019 forward Mackie Samoskevich said of the three-week Olympic break. \u201cSome guys will get to play some more hockey, which is good for them and will be fun to watch. But it\u2019ll be nice to get some guys back from break and go from there.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Panthers sending 10 players to the Olympics brings another question not just of their workload, but who\u2019s left at home to practice. Maurice has said as few as 13 players could be left behind. That\u2019s not enough for real practices.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe guys will get a little rest and they\u2019ll train hard, as they always do,\u2019\u2019 Maurice said of those staying behind.<\/p>\n
For those in the games, they split into national teams now.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThere\u2019s a fair amount of faith one of our players will come back an Olympic champion,\u2019\u2019 Maurice said. \u201cWe celebrate everyone\u2019s successes here. It\u2019ll be a positive for our team.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a piece of the good culture the Panthers have constructed. And if you get the idea Maurice is encouraging his players through all this season, they\u2019ve earned it. They\u2019ve won like no other team the last few years. They\u2019ve kept the season afloat through months of injuries.<\/p>\n
But there\u2019s only so much a season can take. This last stretch of games where the Panthers lost four of five, including two in the final seconds, might have broken this season. We\u2019ll see. Again, no one\u2019s counting them out just yet.<\/p>\n
Everyone knows what the two-time champs need, too. They know it most of all. Some of them will even get it now.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust some rest, that\u2019s all this team needs,\u2019\u2019 Maurice said. \u201cJust some rest.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"They need a break. You could use one, too. It\u2019s exhausting just watching the Florida Panthers play, night…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":451918,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5102],"tags":[803,91,245,254,62,57,5141,1231,5,251,94,4,255,63,804,83,252,259,540,244],"class_list":{"0":"post-451917","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida-panthers","8":"tag-aaron-ekblad","9":"tag-aleksander-barkov","10":"tag-anton-lundell","11":"tag-brad-marchand","12":"tag-florida","13":"tag-florida-panthers","14":"tag-floridapanthers","15":"tag-gustav-forsling","16":"tag-hockey","17":"tag-mackie-samoskevich","18":"tag-matthew-tkachuk","19":"tag-nhl","20":"tag-niko-mikkola","21":"tag-panthers","22":"tag-paul-maurice","23":"tag-sam-bennett","24":"tag-sam-reinhart","25":"tag-seth-jones","26":"tag-tampa-bay","27":"tag-the-panthers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116039484940185672","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=451917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/451918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}