RECAP: Jets 3, Panthers 0

SUNRISE, Fla. – After an uncharacteristic performance, Paul Maurice said the Florida Panthers were their own worst enemy in a 3-0 loss to the Winnipeg Jets at Amerant Bank Arena on Friday.

With the loss, Florida now sits at 12-7-1 in the standings.

“We struggled right from the start,” the Panthers head coach said. “The feet, the hands, there wouldn’t be a specific thing. We were behind our game considerably for the entire night.”

As for a positive, captain Aleksander Barkov successfully returned to the lineup after missing the last two games following a knee-on-knee collision during a 2-1 win at Anaheim on Nov. 17.

Not limited at all, he led Florida’s forwards with 19:39 of ice time.

“I was very happy to be back that quick,” Barkov said. “Our trainers did an unbelievable job to get me back out there right away on the ice and get ready for the game.”

After a faceoff win the offensive zone, the Jets opened the scoring when Nino Niederreiter followed up on a point shot from Dylan Samberg and tapped the ensuing rebound out from under Sergei Bobrovsky and across the goal line to make it 1-0 at 17:43 of the first period.

In the second period, both teams had a few quality looks but couldn’t light the lamp. Coming up in the clutch, Bobrovsky kept the Jets from doubling their lead when he robbed Alex Iafallo on a screaming one-timer from the bottom of the right circle just past the nine-minute mark of the period.

With the goals still eluding the Panthers, the Jets struck again in the third period when Nikolaj Ehlers flew around a defender and fired a shot past Bobrovsky’s blocker to make it 2-0 at 11:15.

“I thought, you know, they obviously outplayed us in a lot of aspects of the game,” Panthers forward Ryan Lomberg said. “We’ve got to regroup and make sure we bring a better effort.”

Pulling their goalie with just under five minutes left on the clock, the Panthers turned that 6-on-5 into a 6-on-4 advantage when the Jets were penalized for a faceoff violation. Unfortunately, their comeback hopes ended when Adam Lowry cashed in on the empty net to make it 3-0 at 16:10.

Finishing with 33 saves – including six high-danger stops – for the Jets, Connor Hellebuyck recorded his 33rd career shutout to claim sole possession of fifth place most among active NHL goalies.

“We had shots, we had chances, but we didn’t have second and third guys going to the net and putting the rebounds in,” Barkov said.

Despite losing each of their last two games, the Panthers are 7-3-0 in their last 10 contests.

Given the talent they possess, tonight’s game looked like an odd outlier.

“We did some strange things tonight,” Maurice said. “We had some breakaways that we passed off and open plays that we decided not to hit. The positive is that when your whole group is that bad, it’s fixable. It’s not something systemic that we’ve seen for a long time.”

THEY SAID IT

“I thought [Ryan] Lomberg and [Jonah] Gadjovich got on the body. They were all right. The rest of them were about as good as I was because I couldn’t figure out what we were trying to do out there. We’ll fix that in a couple days.” – Paul Maurice on what he saw during tonight’s loss

“It’s a tough league to play from behind in. We’ve got to do a better job of having a good start.” – Ryan Lomberg on the Panthers falling behind in each of their last two losses

“They played really well, obviously. We were not at our best since the start. We tried to do everything we could, but they played really well defensive, their goalie was really good. I don’t think we had enough guys at the net for rebounds. It was a tight game.” – Aleksander Barkov on how Winnipeg was able to stifle Florida’s offense

CATS STATS

- Sergei Bobrovsky made six high-danger saves.

- The Panthers led 10-9 in high-danger shot attempts at 5-on-5.

- Jonah Gadjovich racked up a team-high four hits.

- Anton Lundell went 11-for-17 (64.7%) in the faceoff circle.

WHAT’S NEXT?

Time for the Cats to pack their bags again.

After wrapping up their homestand, the Panthers will now kick off a three-game road trip with a divisional battle against the Ottawa Senators at Canadian Tire Centre on Monday at 7 p.m. ET.