The Florida Panthers are fresh off a shutout loss that marked their third such defeat in 11 games.

Their coach called it “a step in the right direction.”

The team again is plummeting out of the playoff picture, prompting the general manager to say it’s time to “retool” the roster and nobody is off-limits. But Friday’s trade deadline passed with no moves beyond one announced a day earlier.

The GM said “we made good progress.”

In fairness, the shutout loss came on a night in which the Panthers hit the goalpost six times. And Friday’s deadline only freezes rosters until after the Olympic break, meaning nobody in the locker room should feel comfy.

If that wasn’t obvious by GM Randy Sexton’s heated comments after a loss Tuesday, it was on the club’s Web site Friday, when new managing partners Cliff Viner and Stu Siegel posted a sharply worded, signed letter.

“We must admit the significant shortcomings we have as an organization,” they wrote, “and we must move quickly and efficiently to overcome these shortcomings.”

The partners said their goals included qualifying for the playoffs “on an annual basis” and contending for the Stanley Cup “in the near future.” They pointed a finger at players who have dropped five straight entering tonight’s home game against Boston, the final outing before the Olympic break.

Click here to read the full article – By Palm Beach Post

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A day after the players held a closed-door meeting and General Manager Randy Sexton told reporters he was ready to clean house if his team didn’t play with more passion, the Panthers were in a foul mood.

“We haven’t shown up to play,’ defenseman Keith Ballard said after a 40-minute practice Wednesday. “We haven’t competed hard enough and we haven’t been desperate enough to win games, and we haven’t deserved to win them.

“We’re letting each other down. (Goaltender Tomas Vokoun) is playing his butt off, and we’re not giving him any support.’

That’s an understatement. The Panthers have scored 13 goals in their last 11 games, including four during their current four-game losing streak.

The offense took another hit when coach Peter DeBoer confirmed that forward Rostislav Olesz suffered what is believed to be a broken hand in Tuesday’s 4-1 loss to Carolina. He will be out for the final two games before the 16-day Olympic break and perhaps longer. Although Olesz hasn’t scored a goal in his past 11 games, he is still fifth on the team with 26 points.

Snapping the scoring drought won’t be easy. These next two games at home are against Northwest Division-leading Vancouver Canucks and the Boston Bruins. Vancouver is led by former Panthers goalie Roberto Luongo, who has a 2.33 goals-against average on a team that has allowed the third-fewest goals.

Click here to read the full article – By Palm Beach Post

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“It wasn’t exactly a bold prediction, but Panthers defenseman Keith Ballard correctly forecast after Sunday’s win that goalie Tomas Vokoun would be the team’s defensive player of the month.

Vokoun earned a more prestigious honor Monday.

he 33-year-old veteran was named the NHL’s Third Star for January. Capitals winger Alexander Ovechkin was the First Star while Canucks center Henrik Sedin was Second Star.

Vokoun capped one of the best months in his career Sunday by notching his fourth shutout in January. He posted an 8-4-2 record with a 1.49 goals-against average and .956 save percentage and allowed more than two goals in just three of his 14 starts. Two of those three games were against the high-powered Capitals.

Vokoun made his 16th consecutive start Monday against the Ducks and coach Pete DeBoer plans to go with him the final five games before the Olympic break. He won’t get any rest then.

Click here to read the full article – By Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel

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Not everything went wrong for the Panthers on Monday night, it only seemed that way. For Keith Ballard, things couldn’t have gone worse.

Ballard not only knocked goalie Tomas Vokoun out of the game by inadvertently smashing him in the head with his stick in the first period, but the winning goal deflected off his stick with 5.5 seconds left as the Thrashers pulled out a 4-3 victory at Philips Arena.

Vokoun had to be taken to a local hospital, where it was feared he had sustained a concussion after the hit by Ballard.

General manager Randy Sexton said after the game that Vokoun only sustained a lacerated left ear that needed stitches. Vokoun was expected to be transported from St. Joseph’s Hospital on the north side of town to the airport to meet the team for its charter flight back to Fort Lauderdale. It’s not known how long Vokoun will be out.

Click here to read the full article – By Miami Herald

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The Panthers quickly have gone from one of the hottest teams in the NHL to a lukewarm bunch that has lost four in a row.

One of the big problems the Panthers — who earned a point in two of the losses — have had during this rough patch is their propensity to fade in the third period.

The team is in the midst of a brutal stretch, playing at least every other day for a six-week stretch. The next time the team will have consecutive days off between games is the NHL-mandated Christmas break.

Since Nov. 12, the Panthers have played 10 games in 17 days, going 5-2-3. Starting with Monday’s game in Atlanta, the Panthers will play 14 games in the following 24 days with three sets of back-to-back games thrown in for good measure.

Are the Panthers just running on fumes?

“I don’t think so,” center Stephen Weiss said. “Every team has gone through that and we’ve had our rest, we’ve had our optional days. Guys are in good shape. Once you are out there, it’s not a problem. In fact, the longer [Saturday's] game stayed tied, I liked our chances more and more.

Click here to read the full article – By Miami Herald

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Florida Panthers majority owner Alan Cohen is stepping down to allow two minority partners to run the NHL franchise.

The team introduced Cliff Viner and Stu Siegel as co-general partners at a news conference Monday.

An e-mail sent to fans said that Cohen will remain a limited partner with the team, which has not won a playoff series since 1996 or a playoff game since 1997. In the release, Cohen thanked Viner and Siegel, and said South Florida is a “great market and they deserve a winner.”

The deal has not yet been approved by the league.


Click here to read the full article – By Associated Press of ESPN.com

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Rostislav Olesz is about as polite a professional athlete as anyone would want to meet. He is affable and willing to talk about just about any subject.

Except for one.

“I just don’t want to talk about it anymore,” Olesz said when asked about last season. “That was last season. What happened happened. It was my worst year in hockey.”

It’s no wonder Olesz wants to put last season behind him. His fourth NHL season started swimmingly enough, with Olesz getting a six-year contract worth close to $19 million. Some questioned why then-general manager Jacques Martin felt he needed to give Olesz such a big deal, but others looked at Olesz and figured he was just about to break through. In 2007-08, despite missing time with a freak hand injury, Olesz scored 14 goals and had 12 assists in 56 games.

Through his first three seasons, Olesz had scored 33 goals and had 45 assists. He was, some pundits said, about to become the next big thing. And he still might be, since Olesz is still a young player. He turns 24 Saturday, the same day Florida plays its home opener. But Olesz didn’t take that big step forward last season. Not by a long shot.

Click here to read the full article – By George Richards of Miami Herald

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The Florida Panthers start regular-season play today and Saturday in Finland. Perhaps they wish they could wait another day or two.

The team has been hit hard by illness, although it’s uncertain how sick several of the players are.

The Panthers went through their final full workout Thursday before the opener against Chicago at Helsinki’s Hartwall Arena, and did so without center Stephen Weiss and defensemen Bryan Allen, Keith Ballard and Jordan Leopold. Coach Peter DeBoer said all four were held away from the team because they were sick.

“We have a flu bug running through the team,” DeBoer said. ”I think it started earlier in the trip. Stephen Weiss is the first player to get it, and it has run through a couple more. Right now we have to keep those guys away from the others and try to get through Friday and Saturday without it spreading any more.”

Click here to read the full article – By George Richards of Miami Herald

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Right off the kitchen inside the Booth family’s home, on a desk cluttered with several other snapshot memories, rests a framed picture of a 9-year-old boy with loose, blond curls wearing a Florida Panthers T- shirt.

Like the other kids in his suburban neighborhood about 30 miles north of Detroit’s Joe Louis Arena, David Booth had been a Red Wings fan since he was a tyke. He was so enamored with hockey that he liked to put a small laundry basket on his head, Frisbees under his feet and shuffle around on the kitchen floor as if it were a fresh sheet of ice.

But when the NHL team in South Florida unveiled its leaping Panther logo with the broken hockey stick in its paws, it was too cool for even a well-bred young Wings fan to ignore. That Christmas, Santa left a Panthers cap and T-shirt under the tree.

“It’s kind of weird having all those pictures wearing that,” Booth said, smiling as he reminisced.

Click here to read the full article – By Steve Gorten of South Florida Sun-Sentinel

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