Inconsistency has plagued the Florida Panthers entering their road game on Thursday night against the Winnipeg Jets.
That trend continued with a 4-1 home loss to the San Jose Sharks on Monday which dropped Florida to 6-7-1 over the last 14 games with consecutive wins just once over that span.
But the good news in that contest was the return of Matthew Tkachuk. The talented and rugged impact forward made his season debut after recovering from surgery last August to repair a torn adductor muscle and sports hernia that he played through to bring home Florida’s second straight Stanley Cup.
In 20:58 of ice time, Tkachuk had three shots, a hit, a blocked shot and took a two-minute roughing penalty.
“Felt better as it went along. First period was weird, I will say. It was a little strange. Just nothing, nothing mimics a game,” Tkachuk said. “It was weird, but the second period felt a little bit better and then the third kind of felt pretty much back to normal.”
The Panthers, who currently are five points out of the playoff position, certainly need Tkackuk in order to reach the playoffs and have any chance of returning to their form of winning the last two Stanley Cup championships.
“I can’t afford to come back and just feel my way into it and, hopefully, after five games feel back ready and helping,” he said. “It’s got to happen right away. We’re chasing too many teams. We’re too many points out. It’s hard to chase.
“Unfortunately, we’re at that point where we’re scoreboard watching.”
Florida also has been without captain and center Aleksander Barkov for the entire season. He tore the ACL and MCL in his right knee during preseason camp in September.
Defenseman Niko Mikkola left the loss to the Sharks early, did not practice Wednesday but is expected to play Thursday.
Defenseman Seth Jones, out since sustaining an upper-body injury in the Winter Classic on Jan. 2, was replaced Wednesday on the U.S. Olympic roster by Anaheim’s Jackson LaCombe.
The Jets have won five of their last seven (5-1-1) after a 3-1 home win over the St. Louis Blues on Tuesday night, bouncing back from a 2-0 road loss to the Chicago Blackhawks on Monday.
“Just to get the win is huge for our group. We just need to keep it rolling,” said Jets forward Mark Scheifele, who had two goals and an assist. “We just kind of stuck to our game and didn’t try to do anything too crazy and just stuck with it.”
Defenseman Josh Morrissey had a goal and two assists, forward Kyle Connor two assists and Eric Comrie made 22 saves on Monday.
“I think those are games where the details of your team game have to be on,” Morrissey said. ” … We did a good job of just sticking with our game and rolling the lines in the ‘D’ and kind of that greasy, greasy game that got us the two points.”
Winnipeg scored two power-play goals and killed three of four St. Louis power plays. The Jets have killed 16 of 17 penalties in their last seven games.
“Especially this time of year, specialty teams can win you games, and I think they did for us,” said Winnipeg coach Scott Arniel. “Other nights, it’s just all 5-on-5. Some nights, it’s goaltending. Tonight, I would say specialty teams (was) the difference.”
