Takeaways: Maurice Fumbles Starter Decision, Knight Gives Up 7 in Blowout

Spencer Knight and Florida Panthers were chased out of Boston courtesy of a 7-3 beatdown from the NHL-leading Bruins.

Starting Knight Sets the Panthers up for Failure

After a convincing win against the New Jersey Devils a few days ago, the Panthers followed up with a brutal loss to the Boston Bruins.

That’s been the tale of their season so far. Win one, lose one, win two, lose two. The Cats just can’t get ahead. They are stuck in perpetual .500 hockey.

Now, we can’t fault the Panthers too much for not taking down the surging Bruins. After all, they were without their captain, Aleksander Barkov, and were still missing Radko Gudas, Anton Lundell, and Patric Hornqvist.

As Maurice said after the game, “for us to win that game tonight, we were going to have to give up almost nothing off the rush… we were going to have to keep that about as tight as we possibly could to win tonight.”

But the Panthers certainly could have positioned themselves better against the Bruins by not thrusting in a cold Spencer Knight into action.

Knight Not the Right Choice

Paul Maurice elected to start Knight over the red-hot Sergei Bobrovsky.

Knight had missed the teams’ previous six games while battling an illness. A ‘bug’ has been sweeping through the Panthers dressing room as of late. And from what we’ve seen when players return to the lineup, it’s taking about a game or two to get their legs back.

Now, when it comes to goaltenders, you either start or you don’t. You can’t manage their minutes and ease them back in like you can with a forward or defenceman.

But coming back from an extended absence to start against the NHL’s top team, who is undefeated at home, seemed like a recipe for disaster.

And that’s exactly what happened. 

Before the game had even started, it was over. Spencer Knight surrendered three goals on the first nine shots of the game. 

Things didn’t get better either for the goaltender who spent his college career in this very city. Boston would pour on four more goals before Knight’s disastrous evening came to an end.

Overall, it was an uncharacteristic performance out of the third-year goaltender. Knight has played well for the majority of this season and looked to have taken the starting job from Bobrovsky before he fell sick. 

But obviously, there was going to be rust in his game. And picking the Bruins as the team to shake off that rust against was ill-advised.

“You can’t learn a bunch of things about playing goal from the bench,” Maurice said about Knight’s performance after the game.

“You gotta live through them. And I’m sure he learned a bunch of things tonight.”

But was this the best time for the Panthers to have Knight “learn a bunch of things”?

For a team desperately trying to put together a run, starting Sergei Bobrovsky had to have been the more logical choice.

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Ride the Hot Hand

Bob has been on a heater during Knights’ absence. In six straight starts, he has compiled a 2.27 GAA and .923 SV% stat line.

Goaltenders are streaky players, and when they get on a run it’s typically in the teams’ best interest to go with the hot hand.

There is the argument that the team would be burning out Bob with so many starts, but it’s a weak one.

If Bobrovsky had started last night, it would have made for his seventh straight start. But making seven consecutive starts isn’t something foreign to the Russian star. Last season he had a successful stretch of seven starts from January 1 – January 15. 

During that run, the team went 6-0-1 including wins on back-to-back nights to close out the seven-game stretch.

The league also has its Christmas break less than a week away, so the idea of burning a player out when they have a week off coming up is a moot point.

Perhaps though, with their depleted roster, Maurice figured the team’s chances of victory were so slim that getting the rust off during a “throwaway” game was the best course.

Uphill Battle from the Start

The Panthers are currently very weak down the middle with Barkov and Lundell out. Amplifying their absence is that those two are the teams’ best two-way forwards.

Going up against a team like the Bruins, who are so deadly on the rush, was going to be an uphill fight regardless if the Panthers had dressed a full, healthy roster.

However, despite the chips stacked against them, the Panthers did show some fight. 

After falling behind by four goals, the Panthers scored three times in just over five minutes of play in the second period.

The home crowd at TD Garden fell silent after Carter Verhaeghe pulled the Panthers to within one. Perhaps the fans were thinking those “Comeback Cats” of last year had returned.

Unfortunately for the Panthers, that’s as close as they would get.

Boston scored three unanswered goals to restore their four-goal lead and came away with a 7-3 win.

With the win, the Bruins improved their home record to 17-0-2. 

Up Next

The Panthers are heading back home for a date with the New Jersey Devils. 

The two teams squared off just three days ago with the Panthers putting together a brilliant team effort in their 4-2 win.

Radko Gudas and Anton Lundell remain game-time decisions. 

The Panthers have two games remaining on their schedule before going into the Christmas break.

Puck drop is Wednesday, December 21 at 7:00 pm ET.