With their season on the line, Panthers are still waiting for stars to star vs. Lightning

The Florida Panthers are in danger of becoming only the fourth team in NHL history to win the Presidents’ Trophy and then get swept out of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

The high-powered offense they rode to the best record in the NHL has vanished, and the stars who led the Panthers’ historically high-scoring attack have, too.

After dropping the first three games of the second round to the Tampa Bay Lightning, Florida faced a must-win situation for Game 4 on Monday in Tampa and has gotten just three combined points — all assists — from star forwards Jonathan Huberdeau, Aleksander Barkov and Claude Giroux, and only one has come during 5-on-5 play.

“They have another gear,” interim coach Andrew Brunette said. “It’s not out of lack of effort or trying to find it. It’s just it has to come from somewhere and they’re looking as hard as they can. They just haven’t found it yet. Today’s a new day.”

Panthers’ prolific offense has vanished. Now they’re on brink of getting swept in Tampa

Barkov, although he leads the team with 14 shots and 15 scoring chances through three games, has yet to score in Round 2 after a solid opening round. Giroux, who averaged more than a point per game in Round 1, has seven shots, 10 scoring chances and not a single point in the second round. Huberdeau, despite two primary assists against the Lightning, still hasn’t shown up in any significant way in these Cup playoffs, with just five points in the playoffs and only five shots in this series.

On defense, Aaron Ekblad’s shaky play at the point on the power play was a major contributing factor to Florida’s 0-of-25 start the playoffs, and MacKenzie Weegar’s solid possession game has been overshadowed by a handful of glaring — and massively costly — mistakes late in games, including a lapse leading to Tampa Bay’s game-winning goal with 3.8 seconds left in Game 2.

Only star goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky, who has saved 90.8 percent of the shots he has faced in this series and 90.6 percent in this postseason, has played up to the expectation he set in the regular season, at least among the Panthers’ highest-profile players.

“I’ve got to give more. I’ve got to be better, obviously,” Huberdeau said. “Every guy — we need to be a bit better.”

For the first two games of the series, there were some good signs, particularly from Barkov and Giroux. Florida had a 27-9 advantage in shot attempts, a 16-4 advantage in shots on goal and a 14-5 advantage in scoring chances when their line — with fellow forward Carter Verhaeghe — was on the ice.

In Game 3, the Panthers got outshot while this top line was on the ice and outscored 1-0.

Even more concerning, Florida was more effective at creating chances when Verhaeghe was on the ice separate from Barkov and Giroux.

Still, the Panthers do have an overall edge in shots and scoring chances, and, sometimes these are the breaks of hockey, when a red-hot goaltender can deny a few of a team’s best chances and suddenly big possession advantages don’t actually yield any goals. Over the course of an 82-game regular season, it evens out, but a best-of-7 series is too short and, eventually, the best players on the team need to figure out a way to break through.

It is a tricky balance to strike — the Panthers won the Presidents’ Trophy by sticking to their system and trusting it would eventually lead go goals, but now they’re just about out of time — and maybe why the third period Sunday was so disjointed.

“When you chase the game, it’s hard not to try to do it by yourself, hard not to go 1-on-2 or 1-on-3,” forward Sam Reinhart said Sunday. “We stopped putting pucks behind them. It was working early in the game, but when you don’t get rewarded, when you don’t get those goals it’s certainly tough to stick with it.”

Panthers turn to Thornton’s experience

Joe Thornton will make his 2022 postseason debut for Florida in its must-win Game 4 at Amalie Arena.

The 42-year-old forward, who has three Hart Memorial Trophies and more playoff experience than anyone on the roster, is joining the playoffs for the first time in the playoffs as the Panthers look for a spark with their season on the line.

“He’ll bring energy, enthusiasm,” Brunette said. “I think we need that. They’re a little bit down the last couple games, especially after that Game 2, and we need a little bit more energy, more life.”

Rookie center Anton Lundell is also returning to the lineup after Brunette benched him for Game 3. Wingers Anthony Duclair and Ryan Lomberg both come out of the lineup, to make room for Thornton and Lundell.

NHL fines Hagel for boarding

Although referees only whistled Brandon Hagel for a two-minute cross-checking penalty in the first period of Game 3 on Sunday, the NHL fined the Lightning winger $3,750 — the maximum amount allowed by the collective bargaining agreement — for an boarding center Eetu Luostarinen from behind.

The refs did review the penalty to see whether it should have been a five-minute major, but determined it was just worth a minor penalty. Luostarinen went headfirst into the boards on the play, and briefly headed back to the locker room for examination and treatment before he finished the game.

Florida scored its first — and, so far, only — power-play goal of the playoffs after the penalty.

NHL sets Game 5 time

If they can extend their second-round series to a fifth game, the Panthers will return to South Florida on Wednesday for Game 5.

Either way, it would be a must-win game for the Panthers, who dropped the first three games of the series to their in-state rival. The game, if it happens, is set for 7 p.m. at FLA Live Arena in Sunrise and will air exclusively on TNT in the United States.