The Florida Panthers scored first and then rode the struggle buggy the rest of the way before falling 3-1 to the New Jersey Devils in the home-opener for the Garden State’s NHL club.
Florida struck early, opening the scoring just 1:59 into the game when Evan Rodrigues cleaned up in front after Brad Marchand, who took a pass from Seth Jones, was stopped twice by Jake Allen. Marchand and Jones each collected their third assist of the young season on Rodrigues’ second of the campaign.
Daniil Tarasov was rock solid in the first frame, making 12 stops to get the Cats to the dressing room with the slim lead intact.
Rodrigues would trip Jack Hughes 5:04 into the second and the slick Devil would snipe Tarasov up high from the lower left circle with the assists going to Jesper Bratt and Timo Meier 44 seconds later to knot the score. It was Hughes’ first goal of the year.
As good as he was in the first, Tarasov shook off the power-play goal and was even better in the second, making some highlight reel saves to keep his outplayed mates even after forty minutes.
Unfortunately, there would be no further support for the beleaguered Tarasov, as the Panthers failed on back-to-back power plays that came late in the second and early in the third.
The Devils eventually forged ahead when Brenden Dillon sent a pass to the opposite point to Simon Nemec, who snapped off a soft shot that Meier deftly deflected down off the ice and through a handcuffed Tarasov at the 6:23 mark.
Some Keystone Cops-style defending led to the clincher at 11:47 as the Cats played hot potato with the puck and Niko Mikkola and Jones both went to the same man, allowing Nico Hischier to get free and wrist the disk past Tarasov’s glove, with the lone assist going to Dawson Mercer.
Sam Reinhart appeared to score with Tarasov off for an extra-attacker, but the goal was waved off due to Anton Lundell making incidental connect with Allen. Looked like a pretty good screen to me, but I’m not a zebra.
The Panthers offensive ineptitude wasted another quality start from Tarasov, who stood on his head, finishing with 30 saves in his second start for his new team. Florida’s found the back of the net just four times so far on the road trip, and while they are managing to game’s close, that seems like it’s all they are capable of right now. They’ll shuffle off to Buffalo for a Saturday matinee against the Sabres.
The Five Hole
- Brad Marchand became the first 37-year-old with a five-game point streak for the Panthers since Jaromir Jagr in 2016-17. Marchand leads the Cats in scoring with six points.
- Marchand was one of three Panthers to finish with four shots on goal. Goal-scorer Evan Rodrigues and Mackie Samoskevich were the others.
- In addition to his assist, Seth Jones logged 24:47 of ice time (second behind Aaron Ekblad’s 25:42), dished out a game-high six hits and blocked two shots.
- Anton Lundell saw his four-game point streak come to an end. Lundell was credited with one shot on goal, two hits, two blocks and won seven of his ten faceoffs.
- Florida went 0-for-5 on the power play and managed just 22 shots on New Jersey’s Jake Allen. That’s not a winning recipe.
Stat Card
