The Panthers are running out of time to make the playoffs

The Florida Panthers lost again Monday night, this time in a 5-3 effort to a Buffalo Sabres squad that’s trending upwards as we get into the final stretch of the 2025-26 regular season.

The team also lost Sam Bennett to an upper-body injury, and he’ll be reevaluated before the Panthers return from the upcoming Olympic break.

Florida is now 28-24-3 with 59 points, which ranks dead last in the Atlantic Division and nine points back of a Wildcard spot in the Eastern Conference.

With nine of Florida’s players preparing to go to Italy for the 2026 Winter Olympics, some are wondering if the team will reevaluate its plans for the rest of the season once they return.

On Tuesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Tyler Yaremchuk and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton discuss the Panthers’ struggles and whether it’s too little, too late for the two-time defending Stanley Cup champions.

Tyler Yaremchuk: You start to run through some math: The Panthers, as it stands right now, are nine points out of a playoff spot. They have 27 games to go. Let’s say they go 20-7-0 and pick up 40 points from now to the end of the season: That means Boston would only need 32 points in 25 games, and that’s easy to do. They could play below .500 and still beat Florida.

Panic should have set in about 10 games ago in Florida.

Carter Hutton: I think it was probably was, and there was a sense of urgency, it’s just now being displayed to the media. We’re now in a day that we see too much getting to the media, and we saw this with the panic in the Toronto Maple Leafs, earlier, but these behind-the-scenes conversations and you think you can play your way out of it.

You can watch watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…