The Florida Panthers ugly late season swoon continued in a disturbing 5-3 loss to the Montreal Canadiens at Bell Centre.
For the second straight night, the Panthers took the second period off, allowing the Canadiens to overcome a one-goal deficit and avoid a season-series sweep.
Anton Lundell opened the scoring 9:16 into first period. After tracking down Niko Mikkola’s clear off the boards, Evan Rodrigues carried into the Montreal zone before getting the puck swept off his stick by Jayden Struble. Lundell claimed the loose disk and took advantage of wide-open space to move in on, and beat Sam Montembeault short side.
It only took the Panthers 56 seconds to cough up the lead. They did so by leaving Joel Armia unharried in front to rap home the rebound of Michael Pezzetta’s wrister from the top circle. The second assist on the goal went to Alex Newhook, who drew a couple of Cats to him to open up a lane for Pezzetta.
After dishing down into the right corner, Aleksander Barkov burst to the net to take a glorious return pass from Vladimir Tarasenko and finished with a flourish to give the Cats the lead back at 13:13. A beautiful piece of work, but…
The middle frame would belong to Nick Suzuki, who tied the game at 5:58 after an absolutely dreadful turnover by Dmitry Kulikov and then put the Habs ahead for good at 13:32 when he tipped in Mike Matheson’s shot from near the blue line with Montreal up a man. Newhook collected the secondary assist on the power-play goal for his second point of the tilt.
There would be no third period comeback on this night as Cole Caufield went by Brandon Montour before rounding the net and stuffing the puck in with Anthony Stolarz too slow to close off the opposite post. The insurance goal came just 33 seconds in and was assisted by Juraj Slafkovsky and Kaiden Guhle as the Panthers just stood around and watched it happen.
Jake Evans would add insult to injury by converting a shorthanded breakaway at 4:34 to put the Canadiens up by three.
Sam Bennett sniped Montembeault from the lower left circle with 1:16 remaining, with the assists going to Kulikov and Lundell, to complete the scoring. Great individual effort by Bennett, but way too little, way too late.
Seemingly hell-bent on starting the postseason on the road, the Panthers will take the 2024 Spring Implosion Tour to the Canadian Tire Centre next, where they will play the Ottawa Senators in their penultimate away game on Thursday.
Poutine & Beef
- Montreal captain Nick Suzuki earned First Star honors for his two-goal performance. Suzuki is one helper away from becoming the first Hab since Alex Kovalev (2007-08) to produce at least 30 goals and 40 assists in a season.
- Gustav Forsling matched Suzuki with a game-high six shots on goal and was tops on the team with three hits and 24:36 TOI.
- Anthony Stolarz finished with 34 saves, but couldn’t give the Panthers what they needed when they needed it most, allowing Cole Caufield’s wraparound and low-scoring Jake Evans’ wrister within a 4:01 span.
- Anton Lundell’s game-opening goal gave the young center his third consecutive 30-point season. It was his only shot on goal of the contest.
- Former Panther Sam Montembeault recorded his 15th win of the season, stopping 37 of 40 shots. Twenty of those saves came in the third period.
- For more on Florida’s latest loss, take a peek at Eyes On The Prize.