Matthew Tkachuk scored a pair of goals to power the Florida Panthers to a 6-1 victory over the Minnesota Wild at Xcel Energy Center, ending the club’s five-game road trip on a high note by posting their 20th win of the campaign.
After some back-and-forth play between the two teams, Jesper Boqvist took a pass from Mackie Samoskevich, rounded the net and fed Aaron Ekblad at the right point. Ekblad strided in and snapped a shot through heavy traffic, putting the puck in off the far post to open the scoring at 3:48.
Penalties to A.J. Greer and Sam Reinhart 1:14 apart left the Cats in a tough spot. They killed off the 5-on-3 portion, but surrendered a goal when Kirill Kaprizov bumped Matt Boldy’s slap pass ahead to Marco Rossi and he beat Sergei Bobrovsky with a backhand with 3:49 left in the first frame.
Ekblad picked up his second point of the period when he collected the puck after Ben Jones fell down and headmanned to Samoskevich, who skated down the right side before unleashing a cruise missile of a wrister from the circle that left Marc-Andre Fleury looking towards the heavens for help 2:03 after Rossi’s goal.
Tilting the ice in the second, Tkachuk would finally pad Florida’s lead with 4:32 left to go in the period. Carter Verhaeghe pulled up after crossing the line and sent a pass into the slot that went off the glove of Boldy, the skate of Aleksander Barkov, and the body of Jared Spurgeon and then ended up on Tkachuk’s blade. Tkachuk whacked it home five-hole before crashing into Fleury, causing a post-goal scrum.
The Panthers tacked on another 3:26 later, with Boldy off for slashing. Fleury stopped an Ekblad slap shot from the left point, but couldn’t handle the rebound and Tkachuk finished it off after Verhaeghe took the first crack at it.
Defenseman Niko Mikkola set a new career-high in goals 11:10 into the third when he received a crisp pass from Anton Lundell and sniped Fleury from just above the left circle. Sam Reinhart drew the second helper on Mikkola’s fourth of the season.
Eetu Luostarinen completed the scoring with 30 second left in the tilt, potting his own rebound after receving a sweet little backhand dish from Evan Rodrigues after a Minnesota turnover. It was Luostarinen’s first goal since October 19.
The Wild were the better team in the first period, outshooting the Cats 15-8, but strong goaltending from Bobrovsky, who finished with 26 saves, before Samoskevich’s gem got the visitors to the dressing room up by one. It was all Panthers after that, and as did they did in Edmonton, they hung a half dozen on one of the league’s best teams. Hats off to the Cats for bouncing back after getting blanked in Vancouver and Calgary to finish this tough road trip with a winning record. You’ve done a man’s job, sirs.
Spiders & Snakes
- The Panthers rare road win in St. Paul allowed them to split the season series and avenge the 5-1 loss to the Wild at Amerant Bank Arena in October.
- Aaron Ekblad’s three-point performance earned the veteran defender First Star honors. It was the second time this season Ekblad has collected three points in a game.
- Matthew Tkachuk’s brace was his 14th multi-goal game in a Florida uniform. In addition to scoring on both of his shots on goal, Tkachuk dished out a game-high six hits.
- Mackie Samoskevich has scored six goals this season and four of them have been game-winners. That was easily the rookie’s best NHL goal thus far.
- Both teams had goals waved off in the game. Kirill Kaprizov’s first period power-play marker was wiped due to goaltender interference and Aleksander Barkov’s second period was deleted due to an offside.
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