Roberto Luongo stopped 30 shots and Evgenii Dadonov notched two goals as the Florida Panthers snapped the Boston Bruins 12-game home winning streak with an impressive 4-1 victory at TD Garden.
The Panthers finished the road portion of its 2018-19 schedule with a 16-19-6 record.
Riley Sheahan opened the scoring at 13:37 of the first period when he deflected Dryden Hunt’s one-timer past Tuukka Rask right after a Florida power-play expired. Keith Yandle drew the secondary assist on the goal to become the first Panthers defenseman to reach the 60-point plateau. The goal was Sheahan’s second since he came over from Pittsburgh.
Dadonov continued to pile up the points when he slammed in a rebound of Aaron Ekblad’s shot from the right circle 2:07 later. Jonathan Huberdeau picked up the second assist on the goal, becoming the first Panther in franchise history to ever hit sixty helpers.
Noel Acciari was the only Bruin to solve Luongo, who delivered one of his better performances of the season. Acciari scored from in close 13:12 into second period to halve the deficit, with the assists going to Torey Krug and Joakim Nordstrom. Krug’s assist was his 45th of the season, matching the NHL career-high he set last season.
Troy Brouwer potted a huge shorthanded goal 1:07 later to restore the Cats two-goal advantage. After Mike Matheson came up with a steal in his own end, he bounced the puck out of the zone off a Bruin. Brouwer tracked down the carom on the other side of the ice, faked a slapper and then beat Rask with a hard wrist shot from the right faceoff dot,
Luongo turned aside seven shots in the third. including a dandy stop on Brad Marchand’s backhand bid, and Dadonov clinched things with an empty-netter from Huberdeau and Aleksander Barkov with 2:19 left on the clock. The goal was Dadonov’s 28th, tying his total from last season with three games left on the slate.
This was a most satisfying victory for the Panthers, coming one week after the Bruins completely dismantled them 7-3 at the BB&T Center. Boston had 16 shots in the first period, but the Cats really clamped down after that, holding the Bruins to 15 the rest of the way, After sitting for rookie Brady Keeper on Thursday, Mike Matheson returned to the lineup and in addition to his assist, finished with a +3 rating and blocked five shots. The Panthers will return home to face the Washington Capitals on Monday before finishing out the campaign with games against the New York Islanders on Thursday and the New Jersey Devils on Saturday.
Video Recap (courtesy of NHL.com)