Don’t look now but the Florida Panthers might be picking up some momentum.
After a frustrating start to their season-long six-game road trip, the Panthers have bounce back in a big way, picking up wins in Ottawa and Buffalo over the past few nights.
Monday’s win over the Sabres was particularly noticeable due to the fact that Buffalo had gone 13-1-0 since early December and were the hottest team in the league.
They also hadn’t lost a game on home ice since the day after Thanksgiving.
Now the Panthers get to take a few days off and relax in their own homes (they’re spending the off time in South Florida) as their roadie doesn’t resume until Friday when Florida plays a back-to-back set in Carolina and Washington.
Let’s get to Monday’s takeaways:
GREER GETS GOING
It had been a while since Greer put up three goals and five points in a six-game span back in late November.
We know what the gritty, skilled forward is capable of offensively, but it’s not often that he gets the opportunity to show it off.
Skating on a line with Sam Bennett and Carter Verhaeghe this week, Greer took advantage and showed what he can do when playing in a top six role.
The 29-year-old scored two goals in a game for the second time this season while also picking up the game-winner in Monday’s 4-3 win in Buffalo.
“He plays hard,” said Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice. “Our first introduction on day two of training camp a couple years ago, I don't think I've seen a guy work that hard straight through a brutal practice, and he's been doing it every night. Analytically, that line, they just score when they're together. Good for him. I don't know that he’s scored a lot of empty net goals in his career, because he wouldn't have got the opportunity to be out there, but he earned it tonight and deserved to be on the ice.”
STRONG FINAL FRAME
If ever there was a time the Panthers knew they’d be in for a fight for two points, it was during the intermission between the second and third periods on Monday in Buffalo.
The Sabres have turned KeyBank Center into a house or horrors for visiting teams over the past month during their ascent up the Eastern Conference standings.
They also had just tied the game a few minutes before the end of the second period, so both the crowd and the team were buzzing.
All Florida did was hold Buffalo to a single shot through the first 13:05 of the third period, which gave the Panthers an opportunity to apply some pressure of their own.
The Cats controlled puck possession and put up eight shots during that time, eventually taking their third lead of the game, one they would ultimately hold on to, on a goal by Anton Lundell.
“We were good,” Maurice said. “I think we had given up one shot in the first 11 minutes. I don't know when the shot came, but at the nine-minute timeout we'd given up one, so we weren’t sitting back, we weren't just flipping pucks out, we were trying to push the pace, but we were right.”
TWO BIG POINTS
The victory allowed Florida to keep pace in a fast-moving Eastern Conference playoff race.
That’s what will happen when there are so many teams competing for so few spots, so tightly packed together.
As it stands, there are two points separating top Wild Card spot (held by Toronto with 53 points) and the five teams below them, a group that includes the Panthers and their 51 points.
There are only eight points, and all eight non-playoff teams, between Toronto and Columbus, who sits in last place in the conference.
Buffalo is the second Wild Card team, one point ahead of Florida.
So yeah, beating them in regulation was fairly big for the Cats.
“They're huge,” Maurice said of the two points. “But the real takeaway is, I loved the way we played, and I felt the same way in Ottawa and the last two periods in Montreal. With some guys out, I get that, but the guys that were in there, they played hard, and we were on the puck, and we were frustrating to play against. We just played fast, and that's a great place to be at this point of the year, to understand that that's the way we got to play.”
LATEST STORIES FROM THE HOCKEY NEWS - FLORIDA
Start time of Panthers next home game changed due to CFP National Championship in South Florida
Panthers road trip continues in Buffalo as Cats will look to take down red-hot Sabres
Photo caption: Jan 12, 2026; Buffalo, New York, USA; The Florida Panthers celebrate a win over the Buffalo Sabres at KeyBank Center. (Timothy T. Ludwig-Imagn Images)