Matthew Tkachuk scored a goal and set up two others to spark the Florida Panthers in a 5-2 victory over the slumping Pittsburgh Penguins to complete the season-series sweep at PPG Paints Arena.
After a low event first period and a disallowed Rickard Rakell goal, Tkachuk finally opened the scoring 4:28 into the second when he easily finished off a perfect return pass from Evan Rodrigues, who had just come out of the penalty box. The second assist on the goal went to Gustav Forsling for head-manning to Tkachuk.
Jonah Gadjovich grew the lead 34 seconds later when he deflected in Brandon Montour’s slapper after Kevin Stenlund sent the puck back to the defenseman at the right point. Kudos to Stenlund and Ryan Lomberg, who toiled hard in the left corner to win possession of the puck.
The Panthers would take advantage of a hooking call on Marcus Pettersson to go up by three at the 8:27 mark. This time, it Tkachuk and Bennett who outworked the Penguins in the left corner. Bennett rapped the puck to Rodrigues, and he sort whiffed on his pass a bit, but still got it to Tkachuk. who fed out to Aaron Ekblad. Ekblad moved into the right circle and beat Tristan Jarry with a hard wrister after dragging to change the angle.
Nick Cousins strip of Jeff Carter led to the Cats fourth goal at 13:02. Cousins would sweep a long lead feed to Tkachuk and he sent a knifing beauty of a back door pass to Anton Lundell, who deflected it home to put Pittsburgh in a huge hole.
Bryan Rust stopped the bleeding with 4:36 left in the frame when he deflected Jake Guentzel’s shot past Sergei Bobrovsky with the secondary assist going to defenseman Chad Ruhwedel.
Lundell bagged his second of the night 5:35 into the third in an unorthodox fashion. After taking a centering feed from Eetu Luostarinen, Lundell got off a shot that was blocked by Pettersson. The puck soared high in the air before coming down to strike a dumbfounded Jarry in the leg before landing over the goal line.
Former Panther prospect John Ludvig would finish off a fine crossing pass from Drew O’Connor for his first NHL goal to complete the scoring 32 seconds after Lundell’s tally. Veteran Lars Eller picked up the second assist on the play. Congratulations to Ludvig on his milestone marker.
The red-hot Cats have won three-straight, seven of their last eight, and a franchise-best nine consecutive games on the road. That nine-game road run is tied with the Edmonton Oilers for the second-longest this season, behind the Los Angeles Kings 11-gamer. Florida gets right back at it tonight in Buffalo.
Emperors & Snares
- First Star Anton Lundell notched his first multi-goal game of the season. Lundell finished the game with two shots on goal, two blocks and a plus-two rating in 15:05 TOI.
- Evan Rodrigues’ two-assist performance allowed him to reach the 200-point mark in his NHL career. He hit the milestone in his 438th game.
- Matthew Tkachuk has racked up an astounding 37 points on 13 goals and 24 assists in 21 games since December 23.
- Rickard Rakell finished with a game-high four shots on goal for the Penguins, who have dropped three in a row.
- Sergei Bobrovsky made 25 saves to post his 26th win of the season. Bobrovsky lowered his GAA to 2.43 and upped his save percentage to .914.