Three games. Three losses. All coming by only one goal. The latest, Tuesday night's 2-1 defeat to the Devils to put the Panthers in a 3-0 hole in this best-of-7 series and on the brink of elimination.

Forget about the Devils for a second, the Panthers' main opposition in this series has been ... well, the Panthers.

Game 1 -- Florida's playoff jitters were so bad, the Panthers yielded three goals before the ice was barely frozen. They came back to make a game of it, but the loss was just as much due in part to butterflies as it was slapshots. In fact, Panthers coach Terry Murray said he'd never seen a more nervous team.

Game 2 -- The Panthers give up the deciding goal during a 5-on-3 advantage.

As for Tuesday night, it was a conservative offensive approach and a third-period faceoff that did in the Panthers.

Playing in a playoff game in front of the homefolks for the first time since 1996, Florida was anxious to get its sellout crowd of 19,250 into the game. And it did. At 9:19 of the first period, Ray Whitney's goal ended his playoff drought and put the Panthers up 1-0.

For a while, it seemed as though the game they forgot to take up I-95 to New Jersey had returned. But then, in the most important game of the year, the Panthers went into hibernation offensively. Florida had numerous shots to pad its lead, but for some reason the Panthers didn't even finger the trigger.

Florida had one shot on goal in the second period, while New Jersey had 19 -- one of which was a goal by Vladimir Malakhov to knot the game. The Panthers were outshot by New Jersey 40-22. And the shot totals were that close simply because of Florida's frantic pace in the third period in which they launched four shots on goal in the final two minutes.

"Passing up shots and stuff like that is not new for us," Murray said. "We are just very reluctant at times to throw the puck through traffic to the net."

Maybe it was complacency. Maybe even fear. Were the Panthers intimidated by Devils' goalie Martin Brodeur, who stopped 21-of-22?

"I don't know why," Murray said of his team's turtle-like offense. "I do not have that answer."

Whatever the reason, the Panthers forgot about their offense. Even worse, there was another fundamental breakdown.

The woeful performance of the second period carried through into the third. Mike Sillinger has been the Panthers' best faceoff man for the entire season. It didn't look like it at 16:49. Sillinger was beaten by Bobby Holik and that outcome proved to be the difference in the game.

"He was hot," New Jersey coach Larry Robinson said of Holik's performance in faceoffs.

Holik backhanded the puck to defenseman Brian Rafalski, who slipped a 55-foot shot that bounced in off the top post past goalie Mike Vernon.

"Shots, opportunities, lost faceoffs are an unfortunate loss," Murray said "The things we were doing to start the game were good. We're disappointed we did not win it, we have a long way to go now."

Said Whitney: "We had our shots. It's unfortunate that we didn't come up with the win. It was close, we had our chances there that could've changed the game."

Bobby Holik and the Devils pin Lance Pitlick and the Panthers down again.(AP)

Pavel Bure continued to be bottled up by defenseman Scott Stevens. Like the Panthers, Bure fizzled after a good start. He had an assist on the opening goal, but was shut down and hounded by Stevens the rest of the way.

The Panthers now face a near insurmountable climb to advance to the second round. What makes it worse for Florida is the realization of just how close they were to winning any one -- or all -- of the three games.

"One-goal games in the playoffs are games that you have to win," Murray said. "It's just unfortunate that it ends up with a power play goal and then a faceoff goal. Now, it's very desperate. You've got to go out now and give everything you've got for the 60 minutes. Are we capable, yes? We just got to do it now.

"We had some great opportunities. But there were many opportunities that we've passed up. Passing up shots and opportunities, that's been the story of the season."

Facing a 3-0 hole, those missed opportunities could mean the end of the season as well.