The Florida Panthers got Matthew Tkachuk back, but that wasn’t enough to make much of a difference in a 5-1 loss to a very motivated Minnesota Wild squad last night at Amerant Bank Arena.
Florida got outworked, out-skated and Sergei Bobrovsky, who was pulled after two periods, had a rough outing, allowing all five goals on 16 shots.
The Wild jumped out to a 3-0 lead before the Panthers finally got on the board at the 11:19 mark of the second period.
Marco Rossi opened the scoring 11:40 into the first by deflecting a Kirill Kaprizov shot past Bobrovksy and then Matt Boldy set Marcus Johansson up for one-timer from the left circle 22 seconds later to put the Cats in a hole.
Boldy came up with another deflection goal on an early second period power play to grow the lead to three with Sam Bennett off for interference.
The Panthers only tally came off a pretty rush play. Nate Schmidt sent a bouncing pass up ice to Tkachuk, who was camped out on the Wild blue line. Tkachuk went down to a knee and deftly steered the puck to Carter Verhaeghe, whose subsequent centering pass was put in by Bennett.
Mats Zuccarello, who assisted on Boldy’s goal, scored 2:38 later after Kaprizov pulled Bobrovsky out of position and fed him in the right circle for a successful one-timer.
Defenseman Jake Middleton picked up his third assist of the night with 3:55 left in the frame when Joel Eriksson beat Bobrovsky from the left circle to complete the scoring.
Spencer Knight got some needed work, playing the third period and stopping all six shots faced as the Wild ran out the clock with little push back from the throttled Cats, who only tested Filip Gustavsson four times over the final twenty minutes.
The Panthers got off to good start, but once the Wild started scoring, they got away from their game and never really got back into it, ending the three-game homestand on a sour note with a 1-1-1 record.
Florida will need to quickly get in a New York state of mind as their next three games are on the road against the Rangers, Islanders and Buffalo Sabres.
Spiders & Snakes
- Joel Eriksson Ek, Matt Boldy and Mats Zuccarello each finished with a goal and an assist for Minnesota, who have yet to lose in regulation.
- Matthew Tkachuk returned after a five-game absence and picked up his 200th point as a Panther. Tkachuk was credited with two shots and five hits in 16:49 TOI.
- Filip Gustavsson is 4-0-1 after stopping 24 of 25 shots. The only “blemish” on Gustavsson’s record this season is a 2-1 overtime loss to the Winnipeg Jets.
- The Wild brought the point streaks of both Sam Reinhart (five games) and Anton Lundell (four games) to end.
- Carter Verhaeghe finished with an assist and a game-high five shots, but he’s still looking for his first goal of the season.