Anthony Stolarz stopped a whopping 45 shots and Carter Verhaeghe scored twice as the Florida Panthers blanked the Buffalo Sabres 4-0 to win its tenth straight road game at KeyBank Arena.
The shutout was the seventh of Stolarz’s career and first in a Panthers uniform as Florida upped its record to 4-0-1 in the second half of back-to-backs.
Despite playing the night before, the Panthers came out with a lot of jump and opened the scoring at 9:26 when Aleksander Barkov dispossessed Ryan Johnson off the puck down low before centering to a wide-open Verhaeghe, who went top-shelf on Eric Comrie.
The tiring Cats were out-shot 17-6 in the middle frame, but came up with the only goal when Gustav Forsling dropped to Matthew Tkachuk at the left point and his shot deflected in off of Anton Lundell at the 17:16 mark.
Stolarz was razor sharp in this period, particularly during a Buffalo power play (courtesy of Sam Bennett needlessly boarding JJ Peterka) when he made five saves to keep his club up by a goal.
The Sabres tested Stolarz 18 more times in the third to no avail and Florida iced it with an empty-netter from Verhaeghe followed by a Ryan Lomberg power-play goal!
After taking a pass off the boards from Barkov that somehow leaked through Rasmus Dahlin, an unselfish Sam Reinhart passed up a chance at his 40th goal to feed Verhaeghe for his second of the night with 1:33 left on the clock.
With Zach Benson sitting in the sin bin, the Cats struck quickly after the offensive zone faceoff, which Lundell won back to Forsling. The defenseman put the puck towards the net and Lomberg cleaned up in front with 12 seconds remaining for his fourth of the season.
A strong start and super duper performance from Stolarz allowed the Panthers to gain two more points to slip into the top spot in both the Atlantic Division and Eastern Conference after the Seattle Kraken topped the Bruins 4-1 in Boston. Despite getting (almost) doubled-up in shots on goal 35-18 over the final forty minutes, the Cats found a way to outscore the Sabres 3-0 to extend its winning streak to four games. Florida will return to the Sunshine State to face the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday.
Wings & Things
- The Panthers are now a gaudy 19-7-2 away from Amerant Bank Arena. Florida is the 11th team in NHL history to win ten straight games on the road, and the second team to do so this season, joining the Los Angeles Kings, who won 11 in a row.
- Anthony Stolarz’s 45 saves are the third-most in a shutout in franchise history, behind Craig Anderson (53 against the New York Islanders on 3/2/08) and James Reimer (46 against the Boston Bruins on 3/15/18).
- Buffalo goalie Eric Comrie, who was seeing his first NHL action since a December 5 start against the Edmonton Oilers, was pretty solid, finishing with 27 saves.
- The Cats got multipoint games from Carter Verhaeghe (2G), Anton Lundell (1G/1A), Aleksander Barkov (2A) and Gustav Forsling (2A). Barkov’s helper on Verhaeghe’s early game-winner was his 40th of the campaign.
- Ryan Lomberg, who has doubled his goal total over the last four games, notched his first-ever NHL power-play marker. The goal came in his 236th career game.
- For more on the first of three between the Panthers and Sabres, stop by Die By The Blade.