panoo

John Kreiser | NHL.com columnist
Mar 16, 2007, 11:00 AM EDT

The Florida Panthers aren’t ready to start playing for next year just yet. They’re too busy hanging in this season’s playoff race.

In early February, it looked like the Panthers were about ready to start playing for next season. The had dug themselves a huge hole in the Eastern Conference playoff race -- even though they were less than 10 points out of a playoff berth, there were so many teams ahead of them that ending a postseason drought that saw the Panthers last make the playoffs in 2000 seem impossible.

But five weeks later, the Panthers are still hanging around. Though they’re 13th in the Eastern Conference standings after Thursday night’s 5-3 home loss to Buffalo, they’re still just seven points behind the Carolina Hurricanes and New York Islanders, who are tied for the last two playoff berths. The Islanders come to the BankAtlantic Center Saturday night, and the Panthers play Carolina twice in the final week of the season.

"I'm sure a lot of people have written us off, but in here, we've never thought we're out of it," forward Nathan Horton told reporters this week. "Obviously, it took us longer than we wanted to get things going, but we feel good about things and now we're making our push."

The Panthers looked ready to pack it in for the season after a 4-2 loss at Minnesota on Feb. 8 left them with a 20-25-11 record and 14th in the Eastern Conference race. “We dug ourselves a pretty big hole,” defenseman Jay Bouwmeester noted.

But a 9-4-2 run has restored playoff hopes in South Florida — and helped bring back the fans, too.

Thursday night’s game drew 18,111, the Panthers’ biggest crowd since Jan. 27. Those fans may have gone home disappointed with the results, but they couldn’t complain about the effort: Florida out-shot Buffalo 45-20, and only a terrific performance by Buffalo goaltender Ty Conklin gave the Sabres the victory.

Overall, the Panthers are 8-2-1 in their last 11 home games, and have drawn more than 17,000 in six of their last seven games at the BankAtlantic Center.

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