5 Takeaways: Panthers End Road Trip with Loss to Red Wings

After being on the wrong end of a 7-2 blowout less than 24 hours earlier, the Red Wings got their revenge on Saturday, squeaking out a 2-1 win over the Panthers at Little Caesars Arena.
With the loss, Florida saw its winning streak snapped at three games.

"We didn't have as much puck support as I thought we did yesterday," Panthers coach Joel Quenneville said. "A lot of things went right for us [on Friday]. Obviously, you expect them to be better. It had to be a hard night. Those are the types of games you don't mind being involved in, a tight-scoring game. We needed to find a way to come up with something, and we didn't."
While the Panthers have leaned quite a bit on their very productive top unit in the early goings of this season, the second power-play unit broke the ice tonight. On the man advantage in the first period, Alex Wennberg collected a pass from Anthony Duclair in the low slot before showing off his quick hands and beating goaltender Jonathan Bernier to send Florida ahead 1-0 at 14:43.
"A great pass," Wennberg said of Duclair's eighth assist of the season. "I had so much time."
At 10:09 of the second period, Detroit tied things up when Luke Glendening - who is winning nearly 70% of his faceoffs - won a draw in the offensive zone to jumpstart a sequence that ended with Patrik Nemeth blasting a shot past goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky to make it 1-1.
Following an egregious missed call after Aleksander Barkov was hit up high - the blade of Marc Staal's stick almost pulled his helmet clean off - the Red Wings then took their first lead of the contest when Mathias Brome cashed in on a rebound to make it 2-1 with 2:33 left in the period.
"We lose the draw cleanly, and then it's in our net," Quenneville said of Nemeth's score. "I didn't like the second goal. That one can't happen. Both [goals were] nothing plays there. We gave them two free goals. To me, that was the difference."
Making a push late in the game, the Panthers fired off 16 shots on goal in the third period, but simply couldn't slip anything past Bernier, who finished with a whopping 38 saves on 39 shots. Between the pipes at the other end of the ice, Bobrovsky turned aside 25 of 27 shots for Florida.
With the loss, the Panthers now sit at 11-3-2, while the Red Wings improved to 5-12-3.
"We had a decent first [period]. I didn't like our second at all. In the third we had a few sniffs," Quenneville said, summarizing the night. "It was tough points to leave out there. If you get an equalizer, you never know. We had a little press there, a push at the end, but not good enough."
Here are five takeaways from Saturday's loss in the Motor City…

1. WENNBERG BREAKS THE ICE

The Panthers were banking on a resurgent season from Wennberg.
Early on, that's exactly what they're getting from the former first-round pick.
After scoring five goals in 57 games during his final season with the Blue Jackets in 2019-20, the 26-year-old center already managed to match that total with a goal tonight, beating Bernier on the power play after some very nice stickhandling to make it 1-0 at 14:43 of the first period.

"My game is getting better and better," Wennberg told FOX Sports Florida's Jessica Blaylock during the first intermission. "Scoring goals is nice, but I try to play all over the ice - defensively, offensively. Right now, it's a lot of good things. You just try to build on that and keep going."
A strong source of secondary scoring for the Panthers as of late, all five of Wennberg's goals have come over the last eight games. Playing in all situations, he's racked up nine points (five goals, four assists) in 16 games this season while skating an average of 17:19 per contest.

2. RED WINGS REBOUND

Trailing 1-0 after 20 minutes, the Red Wings made their push in the second period.
In addition to the goals from Nemeth and Brome, Detroit rode their aggressive forecheck to a win in the possession battle as well. All over the Panthers during the period, they led in both shot attempts (20-14) and scoring chances (8-3) in the middle frame, per NaturalStatTrick.com.
"We kind of shot ourselves in the foot there in the second period," said Panthers winger Frank Vatrano, who picked up an assist on Wennberg's goal. "We came out flat. At the end of the day, we end up losing 2-1... Sometimes when you take a period off, that's what happens in the end."
Oddly enough, the second period had been one of the best for the Panthers this season. Entering tonight's matchup, they ranked fourth in the NHL in second-period goals with 22.

3. BERNIER BATTLES HARD

The Panthers tipped their cap to Bernier, but also felt like they could've done more.
After stopping 23 of 26 shots during a 40-minute relief appearance on Friday, the 32-year-old goaltender looked sharp from the get-go tonight. Giving up one goal on nine shots in the first period, he went on to stone all 30 shots the Cats sent his way over the final two periods of play.
That being said, of Florida's 39 shots on goal tonight, just seven came from high-danger areas on the ice, according to NaturalStatTrick.com. Looking back at the game, Quenneville said he would've liked to see players do a better job of fighting to get those quality looks from in front.
"You've got to fight for your space," Quenneville said. "Around the net tonight, we didn't make it tough enough on him."
Likewise, Vatrano said the Panthers didn't do a good enough job making Bernier's life difficult.
"We weren't getting in front of him for a little bit there, especially in the third," Vatrano said. "We were getting shots through, but there were no second or third chances. I think, with under 10 minutes left, we started to get more second chances, but he was making the saves."

4. KILLING THEM SOFTLY

If the Red Wings never have to see Florida's penalty kill again, they'll be a happy bunch.
Stifling both of Detroit's attempts with the man advantage tonight, the Panthers improved to a perfect 25-for-25 on the penalty kill over their last nine meetings with the Red Wings. Not allowing a single shot on goal tonight, the PK has given up just 38 shots in those nine games.
Heading into tonight's tilt, the Cats sat second in the NHL with a 92.6% success rate on the PK.

5. HEADING HOME

After picking up six of eight points on the road, the Panthers are taking their show home.
Following a well-deserved day off on Sunday, the Cats will kick off a five-game homestand at BB&T Center with a matchup against the Stars on Monday. From there, they'll battle Dallas two more times before closing out their defense of Sunrise with two games against the Hurricanes.
"One game at a time against a good hockey club will be a good test," Quenneville said. "We lose a little bit of excitement. We had a chance to have a perfect trip. Let's go back home and get excited about what the next set of games are."
The Stars are the last team that the Panthers haven't faced in the Central Division this season. The two teams were initially scheduled to open the season against each other in South Florida, but the two-game series had to be postponed after some COVID-19 complications in Dallas.
Showing their ability to bounce back, the Panthers have gone 4-0-0 after losses this season.
"We've got confidence in our group that we can always come back in games even if we're down a goal," Panthers defenseman Gustav Forsling said. "I think we've got a good feeling in this group. We trust each other."