Are you kidding me...

This cannot be happening again. Are you kidding me? Elijah Lucey Rainin left last night's game and did not return. We have an update on him. And as for Brad Marchand, an update on his status as well. I'm sure a lot of you already know what's going on with him, but I have a little bit more inside information about what is going on with his injury. And we're going to talk about the not-so-great performance by your Florida Panthers last night in their home opener. Man, it was ugly. But anyways, guys, this is Panther's Digest. I'm your host, Greg Andrews. Comment, share, like, hype up the video, subscribe. Those of you who are tuning in and not subscribed, hit the button down below. It takes two seconds to do. About 67% of you who are tuning in are not subscribed. Hit that button down below. Like I said, it doesn't take long to do. Really appreciate the support, guys. So yeah, we're going to start things off and get the elephant in the room out of here. Brad Marchand, the good news we already know a lot of you probably already heard six weeks from what we saw replay after replay after replay it looked a hell of a lot worse than a six week injury time frame now the thing that people need to understand about this six weeks it's not truly a real like oh he's got to stay off his leg for six weeks or he's got to be on a brace for six weeks rehab it for six weeks what it is is for three weeks he's going to be rehabbing i do not know if he needs to wear a brace or anything like that all we know is they say lower body injury as you see here and much better news than what they were expecting three weeks resting rehabbing then three weeks of conditioning on the ice according to Paul Maurice so massive massive news for the Florida Panthers positive stuff for Brad Marchand and what's even better and i already said this a couple of days ago in my episodes that he and Alexander Barkov will probably have a very similar time frame in terms of the exact date of their return i will point this out in their schedule in another episode as we get into this a little bit deeper in the season when we could expect them to be back i was going to say probably mid to late November probably sometime around the Thanksgiving break I would assume is when we could see them back at that six-week point maybe it's a little sooner maybe it's a little bit later but the good news is three weeks of rest and rehabilitation for his knee then three weeks of conditioning and Brad Marchand will be back on the ice my goodness dodged a massive bullet but another one this guy has been blocking shots he has been great but unfortunately he has not been blocking shots for the right team he took another shot from friendly fire during a power play last night against Minnesota right off his knee went to the locker room did not return Paul Maurice said that he's going to get looked at today hopefully that does actually happen and we hear some sort of what is up Blue Sturine and i have a feeling we might see him miss a game or two not because he really injured himself terribly but that's the second time that he's taken friendly fire off of a knee in this very young season so i would anticipate him probably taking a little bit of a rest if he's a little banged up because of that i don't think it's going to be anything that's going to be like oh my god he's gonna miss significant time probably a game or two we do have the game tomorrow night uh in Buffalo i believe it's Buffalo but yeah another road trip and hopefully they could pull this one out they've been playing great on the road so far at home it was ugly and we're actually gonna be talking about that right now but what i wanted to get to first is this like i said no update on Lucier Ryan and he'll get looked at today this is from yesterday uh went down the tunnel friendly fire shot on the power play there you go so this is what we were looking at last night not the prettiest of games we looked slow we looked lethargic we were just not one step behind the Minnesota Wild and Kaprizov we were five steps behind them the whole entire game down two goals pretty much five six minutes into the game it was not good it was ugly for us and i know people are going to say well i did like the fact that we saw the Kachuk brothers and Bennett on the same line that was awesome the little scrum that happened there was great i think the cats really need that to be happening more frequently um maurice did say that he wanted to put that line on the ice earlier in the game but because of all the penalties he was unable to do that and that's the other thing that has happened with the Florida Panthers in this very young season is that they are not doing a great job on their special teams power play is just doesn't exist I believe we're like one for 26 on the season some ridiculous number that has to get going and get going quick yes I know with Barkov out and Mierza out that really hurts kind of the guys I mean Barkov kind of runs the power play for us for our first power play unit and our Marchand is usually on the second unit so big holes that need to be filled they have to find a way to start taking advantage because uh last night goose egg for our power play special teams on the opposite side of that defensively on the PK has not been very good either we let one in last night um with Kaprizov having his hat trick um just has not been good Five on five we've actually been very very solid but um on our odd man uh sorry on our man down Man up advantages just not good at all and here is Paul Maurice on the loss there was a consistent there was a consistency throughout like that game they were just slower than they were we were slow in all parts of our game but they were also quick and how they move the puck up their feet we were just sluggish in our game yeah they were they were i mean they just did not look good it looks like there was no gas in the tank i i really i hated the fact that the NHL put the Florida Panthers into a position where right off the bat they've got four games in a row on the road and three of them are West Coast road trips yes we had a lot of rest on the back end of that trip coming back it was about three and a half days almost four days of rest for the guys which is great but i think that that road trip took a toll on them hopefully they'll pick things back up traveling today get to Buffalo hopefully kick their butts we'll see how it goes Markstrom has still been great in net take a look at the numbers right now um i'm sorry excuse me before we get into that here's another quote on Kachuk on their power play we've kind of just got too many one and dones we seem to be not having a guy at the net all the time we seem to you know we've just got to get more sustained offense it has been terrible production wise and I think every player on the team knows that something's got to go I honestly don't know what is happening with with the rest they had over the summer I know the injuries you know it stinks to go with But, I mean, these guys should be rested. They should be ready to go. And I know a lot of people are going to say, oh, it's age. They're the slowest team in the NHL, all of that. And these teams are just getting younger. They're getting faster. I get it. I do get it. I think what needs to happen for this Florida Panthers team is they need, like I said, the consistent thing they need to start getting back to is playing Panthers hockey from three seasons ago. Being physical in all areas of the game. They're not doing that. They're not shoving these guys around and pushing them around and trying to beat them up like we used to do and wear them down, grind them out. We're not doing that. We are getting caught flat-footed. We are getting caught in these horrible situations like we're watching the puck, not watching the players moving around. You know, I get it. You know, we have to watch the puck, but you also have to watch where the players are moving to on both sides of the ice. We need to do more of that, which is what we used to do, which is move the puck a lot, open the shooting lanes, create them, create the passing lanes as well, and we just have not been doing a good job let's take a look at the numbers now from last night's game outshot them by one we out hit them by six but look at the face-off wins they had 43 we had 25 we were horrendous in the face-off circle they won 63 percent of the face-offs when that happens that is usually not a telltale sign of who is actually going to be winning the game clearly it was Minnesota's game to lose they never relinquished that two goal lead it's been bad we barely held on to any leads for any of these games it has not been good for the Florida Panthers so they've got a lot of work to do i think as early as the season is right now thank goodness there's a ton of games left to play and i think they're going to find their stride it's just going to take a little bit of time it will i'm not overly concerned but we'll get there uh you can see their power play um power play chances they were one of three we were 0 for 5 my goodness just terrible and um they blocked 12 shots when we blocked four unfortunately one of those was off Lustrinsk's knee and then they also had 23 giveaways which we should have capitalized on but uh just nothing happening just nothing I I don't understand like really what I'm what I'm looking at when I'm watching these games right now something's got to change and I know people going to say, well, Brady Kachuk has been a bust. It's still early in the season. Don't get down on the guy yet. Something's going to happen. We already saw, I know preseason they played AHL teams pretty much, but he is going to get better as the season goes on. I think he's still finding his footing. He's trying to find his role on this team and it has changed yet again because of the lines keep changing. Inconsistencies with your lines because you keep changing personnel changes what the responsibilities are for those players so his mindset is different from pre-season than where he is now especially with Barkov off out of the line out of the lineup excuse me he's not on that you know he's technically on the first line but they're not the first line they're technically the third line now and then he got shuffled around with his brother and the Bennett line so it's it's a different thing it's a harder thing for guys to get used to to get the chemistry there because I I don't think they played a lot together so far, so I'm not giving excuses, but I do see him picking up his game. He's still playing physical. He's doing the brand of hockey that he knows, but he's got to get in front of the net. He's got to start crashing and doing what he did in Ottawa. Stand in front of there, deflect some shots, get out there, bang some bodies around. Come on, man. Let's get something going. Take those shots, man. Just keep firing them at the net. They're going to get by the goaltenders. Get in the right positions like you did in the preseason. You'll get there. Anyways, here are the stats for the players. You see there Bennett and Hathaway. Hathaway has just been a physical force every single game. Yeah, a lot of penalty minutes for him, but still, that's why we brought him in here, to be very, very physical. If you look all the way to the right for the face-off wins, face-off losses, face-off percentage, terrible. The only guy who was okay was Lafferty. Sam Lafferty won four of his seven face-off opportunities and the same thing for Brady Tkachuk, four of seven, which is not terrible. But you can see there the shots leading the way was Anton Lindell. He's been trying to pick up his game, make something happen. And Matthew Tkachuk scored, had his four shots. Something's got to get better, though, guys, obviously. I don't know how it's going to happen, when it's going to happen, but something's going to start to click, I think, eventually. I think Matthew Tkachuk has to start being the leader that we know he is as an assistant captain. Same thing with Aaron Ekblad. It was great to see him back. I thought he was going to maybe score a goal, kind of running off that high of having a baby. So that's pretty cool stuff there. But nope, nothing happened. And as for the defense, Aaron Ekblad shooting, Seth Jones shooting hits done by Gudis, which we all know, and the workhorse Seth Jones obviously out there doing what he does. And again, another decent showing for Markstrom. Unfortunately, power play goal went in past him. Not really his fault. I mean, we've been out of position. We were caught flat footed and just not a good game for us at all. But he's been playing really solid hockey. I hope all of you guys look at him and say, you know, we actually have a very solid goaltender. A really, really, really good one. And I'm excited to see what's going to happen with him as the season goes on. Hopefully he can stick with this even at his age and he can put up solid numbers and just deliver us some wins. But he's got to get some help offensively and he's got to get help on his special teams for us to win games. That's it, guys. Because if we're having five, you know, if we're getting five power play opportunities in a game or four, we've got to be capitalizing on at least one of them, at least one. But we're not. So anyways, guys, that is it for this episode of Panthers Digest. Let me know what you think about Brad Marchand. I mean, whew, talk about dodging a massive bullet, bullet number two. Same thing with Sasha Barkov. Similar timeline of when their return will be. Awesome news. Now we just got to wait to hear about what's happening with Luke Schreiner. Hopefully he is fine. I bet he will, but don't be surprised if he does miss a game or two. Maybe they keep him here, or maybe they do take him with. I don't know. That remains to be seen. Hopefully we'll hear something later today from the Florida Panthers about what's going on with Schreiner. That's it, guys. Again, comment down below. Let me know what you think of all of this stuff. What do you think is going on with the Florida Panthers? What needs to change? What needs to stay the same? What do you like seeing out there? What line's your favorite line? Do you want to see the Kachuk brothers with Bennett and keep that line and kind of mix things up elsewhere? Tell me what you guys think. I'm excited to see what's going to happen tomorrow night. But anyways, that's it for this episode, guys. Go Cats.