The Florida Panthers tested goaltender Ilya Sorokin 45 times, but came up short in a 4-3 defeat to the New York Islanders at Amerant Bank Arena. It was Florida’s third staight loss on home ice.
With the Panthers dominating much of the first period action, Anders Lee opened the scoring with 7:24 remaining when he tipped in a pass from Kyle Palmieri with Carter Verhaeghe off for hooking. Brock Nelson drew the secondary assist for bouncing the puck off the boards to Palmieri following an offensive zone faceoff win.
Sam Reinhart notched his 16th of the season, finishing a beautiful play off the rush that saw him cross to Brandon Montour, who dropped a no-look backhand pass to Evan Rodrigues, who bumped it off the heel of his stick to Reinhart, who fired it into a wide-open net 1:06 later.
The Islanders would score twice on Anthony Stolarz in the first half of the second period to build a lead they would not relinquish.
Pierre EngvallĀ slapped in the rebound of an Alexander Romanov shot at 4:37, second assist to Nelson, and Simon HolmstromĀ tacked on another at 9:12 after Stolarz denied Julien Gauthier, who had taken a nice feed from Bo Horvat, with his left leg pad, but drifted too far to his right after making the save, leaving plenty of room for Holmstrom.
Matthew Tkachuk halved the deficit at the 13:14 mark by whistling a shot by Sorokin from the right circle after Verhaeghe sped to a loose puck in the corner and made a crisp pass out to the waiting winger. It was Tkachuk’s first goal since November 10.
After setting up Holmstrom goal earlier, Gauthier bagged his first as an Islander 3:43 into the final frame to restore New York’s two-goal advantage. Another offensive zone faceoff led to the goal as Horvat won the draw against Steven Lorentz straight back to Gauthier, who sniped Stolarz from the outer edge of the right circle.
Verhaeghe would claw one back for the Panthers at 9:36, spinning around to backhand a rebound home after Aaron Ekblad fed Gustav Forsling for a hard shot that was blocked in front by Ryan Pulock.
The Panthers would come up empty the rest of the way, with Sorokin’s last second save on Montour’s routine shot from the right side ending it.
Florida did a lot right, namely outshooting the Islanders 45-27, but the visitors made the most of their chances and departed Sunrise with two points. The Cats will get a few days off before facing the Dallas Stars, who destroyed Tampa Bay 8-1 yesterday afternoon, in what will be a tough test on Wednesday.
Flotsam & Jetsam
- The Panthers finished the game with a 94-54 advantage in shot attempts. The Islanders scored the game’s only power-play goal, blocked 25 shots and out-hit the Cats 20-15.
- Anders Lee’s first period marker ended a run of 26 straight penalty kills by Florida’s special teams. The last power-play goal they surrendered was to Anaheim’s Frank Vatrano on November 17.
- Carter Verhaeghe, who has goals in three of the last four games, became the third Panther to hit 20 points. Verhaeghe, Evan Rodrigues, Aaron Ekblad and Brandon Mountor each finished with a game-high five shots.
- Julien Gauthier, who came over as a UFA from Ottawa this summer, posted his first multipoint game with his new team. He has produced three points in six games this season.
- Matthew Tkachuk’s fourth goal of the campaign brought a ten-game drought to an end. He had five assists and was held without a point seven times during the dry spell.