Florida Panthers

One step up, two steps back!

Like the Bruce Springsteen song this is the song that fits the Florida Panthers. It’s the same thing night on night Bruce sings. Well once again, they had a chance for a piece of first place against Carolina. All they had to do was hold on to a two goal lead for 15 minutes of the third period, and a share of first place would have been theirs. See my previous blog “Let’s Play 50 Minutes”.
But, no, they just couldn’t find a way to finish off the Hurricanes. What’s the old saying, when you have your foot on the throat of the opponent you’re supposed to step on it. Well the Panthers must have missed the lecture on that one, because once again they took their foot off the proverbial gas pedal! Now I know alot of people are saying that losing Stephen Weiss to a hand injury was part of the problem, for me that’s just another excuse. Every team has injuries, and every team loses players during games. But if the Florida Panthers are relying on Stephen Weiss to help them finish teams off, they are more delusional than I thought. If we were talking about losing Rod Brindamour, then ok, I could agree with that. But Weiss, aka little weasel as I like to call him?! Come on, why all the fuss about this former first round pick from 2001? We are still waiting for him to put it together as this was going to be his year. He had a nice new 6 year deal (overpaid), and many in the organization felt he was just about ready to take the next step. Well if you ask me, the Panthers have overpaid, and are not a very good judge of talent. But I’ll talk about him another time.

When is someone on this team going to step up and take control/leadership and get this group to realize that this is a team effort and the game is played for 60 minutes. I have been saying this for a long time that since Gary Roberts’ brief stint here, the Panthers are suffering from lack of veteran leadership, someone to get the boys moving, keep them together, and help them from becoming the fragile bunch that they are. Why, please tell me why can’t they close a game? And why is it always against Carolina? They haven’t won in Carolina since 2002. There must be some sort of curse in the RBC Center when the Panthers go there.
Defensively this group wouldn’t hurt a bag of fleas. They are so tentative and nervous. It still takes them 5 passes to get out of their zone. When they are aggressive which isn’t very often, then we have to deal with the fact that they aren’t very smart due to the “dumb” penalties that they end up taking with Branislav Mezei being the main culprit.

While the Panthers have shown recently that they can score some goals, they still are suffering from defensive mistakes, and this from a team whose coach emphasizes defense.
Losing leads late in games whether 1 or two goals is a sign of a serious problem. This has really manifested itself with Uncle Jack as our coach. The team must go into the “prevent defense” at a certain point, and just can’t figure a way to stop the bleeding once it starts. As I watched the Carolina game, I said at the beginning to myself, Ray Whitney was going to be a factor. Sure enough, he scores the eventual game winner with 4:30 left in the game.

What to do now with 21 games left for the Panthers? While they are only 4 points out of first place in the Southleast Division, and 4 points out of the 8th spot in the conference, you would think that they still have a chance. After watching all of these opportunities all year long pass them by, I cannot say that I have much hope left. It’s going to take probably 94 points to get into the playoffs, and that means that the Panthers have to win 17 of 21. Who are we kidding? They have 2 games left against Carolina, 4 against Atlanta, and 2 against Washington. That’s 8 games with 16 points on the line. They would have to take at least 10 of those in regulation to make up some ground. I personally don’t see it happening.

Now because of all the injuries that they have, we are getting close to the trade deadline and we really don’t have too much in the way of talent to offer. The Panthers had chances earlier in the year to make a move or two, yet they continued to move up their AHL players, who honestly belong in the AHL. David Booth is the only call up that has had an impact.
If something positive doesn’t happen ownership really has to consider making some changes with the roster and the front office as well as behind the bench. This two for one deal with Uncle Jack coaching and being the GM isn’t doing anything other than saving money.

Speaking of money, Saturday our postman was kind enough to deliver my season ticket renewal package for the 2008-2009 season. They would like me to renew by March 15!
The season’s not over, they aren’t in a playoff spot, they have a ton of injuries and I am watching bascially an AHL team, yet they want me to renew now? Fat chance of that happening!

Thanks for reading.