J.T. Miller scored 2:09 into overtime to lift the Vancouver Canucks to a 3-2 win over the Florida Panthers at Amerant Bank Arena.
Vancouver out-shot the Panthers 3-0 in the extra session and picked up their first win of the season when Quinn Hughes hit Miller with a back pass and he gained the zone and skated around Anton Lundell before roofing a shot from the right circle on Sergei Bobrovsky. The second assist on the game-winner went to Brock Boeser.
The game got off to a bit of a sleepy start and the Panthers fell behind at the 11:42 mark with Teddy Blueger barely scoring a wraparound goal on Bobrovsky after the goaltender stopped Kiefer Sherwood’s wrist shot. The secondary helper on the play went to Jake DeBrusk.
Florida would strike back 11 seconds later to tie the tilt. After they won the ensuing faceoff, Gustav Forsling dumped the puck in and Mackie Samoskevich won it in the right corner. Samoskevich rounded the net and put the puck out in front where it deflected off the skate of Nils Aman to Jesper Boqvist, who quickly fired it past Kevin Lankinen. It was Samoskevich’s first NHL point and Boqvist’s first goal as a Panther.
The Canucks regained the lead 6:30 into the second when Hughes beat Bobrovksy with a slap shot from the left point. Danton Heinen dropped to Hughes and Sam Bennett blocked his first try, but Hughes got the puck back and hammered the second chance home through traffic. Aman, making his second appearance of the season, collected the secondary assist. Evan Rodrigues lost the defensive zone draw that lead to the goal.
Florida’s struggling power play would click with a minute left in the frame to equalize. After his shot attempt was blocked in the slot, Sam Reinhart got the puck back from Anton Lundell. Reinhart passed to Carter Verhaeghe below the goal line and he re-fed Lundell on the side boards. With the Canucks expecting Lundell to try Reinhart again, they left him space to skate into the right circle and whip a wrister by Lankinen’s blocker for his fourth goal in the last three games.
The Panthers tested Lankinen nine times in the third, but could not come up with the go-ahead goal, which eventually cost them a point. Bobrovsky, who finished with thirty saves, came up with a huge stop on Aman midway through the frame as he matched Lankinen save for save.
A disappointing result as the Panthers got off to a slow start (four shot in the first) and then once they got it going (26 shots over the final forty minutes) could only come up with the Lundell power-play marker. Considering that they’ve played five times in the last eight days, are stilling running the dreaded 11/7, and are missing two of their three best players, I don’t have much issue with the effort -the Canucks are a quality squad – but leaving a point on the table, especially at home, is always frustrating.
Orcas & Minnows
- Thanks to J.T. Miller’s second of the season, the Panthers have lost three straight games to Vancouver. The last time they beat the Canucks was on December 1, 2022. The goal was Miller’s tenth overtime goal with Vancouver.
- Anton Lundell’s power-play marker gave him goals in three consecutive games and extended Sam Reinhart’s point-streak to four games.
- Kevin Lankinen finished with 26 saves to pick up his first win in his second start of the campaign. Lankinen earned his team a point in a 3-2 shootout loss to Philadelphia last week.
- Jonah Gadjovich left in the first period with an upper-body injury after logging just 2:06 of ice time. Already down forwards Aleksander Barkov and Matthew Tkachuk, this isn’t the best of news.
- In addition to producing a goal and an assist, Quinn Hughes registered a game-high nine shots on goal and was credited with two blocks. Monster game for Hughes.