Here's How Panthers Coaching Staff Will Use Early Offseason Start To Their Advantage

It’s been a little while since the Florida Panthers had their season end this early in the year.

The last time the Panthers did not qualify for the postseason was in 2019.

That streak of six consecutive playoff appearances has now been snapped following Florida’s injury-filled 2025-26 campaign coming to an end on Wednesday.

Instead of preparing for another Stanley Cup Playoff run, the Panthers are now heading their separate ways for the offseason, heading home to spend time with family, friends and loved ones while preparing to come back stronger at the end of the summer.

But what about the coaching staff?

Despite having no postseason to prep for, Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice and his collection of hockey minds are sticking around in South Florida for the next several weeks to get a head start on their 2026-27 campaign.

The first thing they’ll do is go back through the season that just ended with a fine-tooth comb and dissect any and all valuable pieces of information while pulling out anything educational that can be used as a learning tool.

“We’ll go through the season hard,” said Maurice. “There are lessons here, and we have to find them.”

That process has already begun.

“We’ll do a little prep for it (Friday), and then we’ll spend a week and go back through it,” Maurice said. “We won’t go back through the year as a team that had two pretty good seasons before, we’ll go back and just look at it as a standalone year.”

Considering all the injuries that Florida had to endure throughout their season, it will be interesting to see what kind of value can be taken from all those challenging evenings the team was forced to play with a shorthanded roster.

Once the coaches are finished breaking down the season as a whole, they’ll begin using that information to prepare for offseason programs and training camp.

“I think the staff is going to stay about a month to do prep,” said Maurice. “So we’ll come in most days and work for about a month.”

They’ll spend that time setting up practice drills and video sessions with specific lessons in mind.

That way, when everyone reconvenes in Fort Lauderdale in September, both the coaches and players will be able to hit the ground running with clear goals in mind.

Due to playing with such a depleted lineup for much of the season, it’s understandable why Florida’s quality of play was not the same as it was in recent years.

Now the goal will be to get the team back to playing the kind of ‘Panthers hockey’ that took them to three straight Stanley Cup Finals.