New head coach Gerard Gallant said he liked what he saw from the new-look Panthers after their 4-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning Saturday night. Panther fans have to be worried about reading the same old story as the season begins Thursday night.
The Panthers finished the preseason 0-4-2 and like past years failed to produce consistent offense. The Panthers scored a total of 10 goals in six games. Split-squads or not, things have to change quickly in that department to avoid another season without a postseason appearance.
To be fair, Saturday's performance was encouraging to some degree as the Panthers outshot the Lightning 37-28. Aleksander Barkov scored a power play goal, which is encouraging. Like last season, Florida looked very good 5-on-5. Tampa netminder, Ben Bishop, was very solid in net while the porous Panthers defense left Al Montoya out to dry on multiple Lightning goals.
Positioning and chemistry have definitely been an issue this preseason, and surely no one knows this better than Galant. The Lightning, who owned the Panthers last year sweeping the season series, look to continue where they left off when the two teams meet again in Tampa on Thursday.
An 82-game season is a marathon, not a sprint, but the Panthers know how difficult it is to remain in playoff contention after a slow start. A 1.66 goals per game average won't cut it.
On paper, this roster looks very balanced and should be a very competitive team game in and game out. But there are still a lot of questions both offensively and defensively for Panther Nation to be confident heading into the season.
Unfortunately Gallant won't have time for this to be a "work in progress" as the season begins. It is time for Jonathan Huberdeau, Tomas Fleischmann, Erik Gudbranson, and Dmitry Kulikov to take their games to the next level. All of them. Not some of them.
The 2015-2016 season will see a very young, fast, hungry core of players GM Dale Tallon has been building for years. But there is no excuse for this team with strong veteran leadership to come out of the gate with anything but a string of strong performances.
Tallon likely has a short leash on a few players that he cannot afford to struggle. If the preseason is any indication he could be making some deals early if this squad doesn't play good hockey from the onset.
So here we go. Another season of hoping the Panthers can finally turn the corner. Another season of hoping the roster doesn't become the all-too-familiar infirmary that has doomed the past few seasons. Lots of questions, so few answers. Only the games will reveal solutions, and right now that is an uneasy feeling.
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