Two more goals from Sam Reinhart wasn’t enough as the Florida Panthers were beaten 5-3 by the Vancouver Canucks at Amerant Bank Arena on Saturday night, dropping the Cats back below .500 after two straight wins over New Jersey and Toronto.
The Panthers only took three penalties in the game, but Vancouver made them pay for two of them.
After Josh Mahura was sent off for interference, Quinn Hughes beat Sergei Bobrovsky from long-range 11:09 into the first period after the Canucks spent some time moving the puck around the periphery and changing positions. The assists went to J.T. Miller and Elias Petterssen, who did a nice job of screening Bobrovsky.
The Cats quickly countered on Aleksander Barkov’s first of the season 20 seconds later. Barkov took a carom off the boards and broke in on Casey DeSmith. He was able to finish off his own rebound after his initial backhand shot hit the post.
A hooking call on Oliver Ekman-Larsson led to Vancouver’s second goal at 10:41 of the middle frame. After the Panthers failed to get the puck out a couple times, Carson Soucy held it in on the right boards before moving to the middle and wristing a shot past Bobrovsky with two seconds left on the man-advantage. The goal was Soucy first of the season and Conor Garland drew the only assist, his first helper of the campaign.
The Canucks added another 34 seconds later when Andrei Kuzmenko tracked down the puck below the goal line after Ilya Mikheyev whacked the puck behind the net following a faceoff, put a spin move on Niko Mikkola and sent a backhand pass out to Petterssen, who buried it from the top the left circle.
Reinhart took over to tie things up in the third, giving him goals in four-straight games.
After Dmitry Kulikov dumped the puck in, Reinhart reveresed it to Barkov, who quickly dished off to Evan Rodrigues. Rodrigues took a lap around the offensive zone before firing a shot on DeSmith. The rebound came to Reinhart, who kicked it onto his blade and lit the lamp at the 6:10 mark.
Reinhart notched his sixth of the season with 5:59 left in the third to knot the score. Mahura passed to Rodrigues in the left corner and he took a couple of strides below the goal line before backhanding the puck out to Reinhart, who put it home. Nice piece of works as all five Panthers touched the puck on the goal.
Unfortunately, Kuzmenko would pot the eventual game-winner 1:02 later. Miller sent the puck lazily off the boards into the Florida zone where Phil Di Giuseppe outworked Ekman-Larsson behind the net before sending the puck back out to Kuzmenko, who was able to dent the twine after Bobrovksy and Steven Lorentz got tangled together, leaving the goaltender unable to make the save. Ugh…Just an ugly way to fall back behind.
Brock Boeser iced it with an unassisted empty net goal with 2:10 left on the clock.
Disappointing effort from the Cats, who only got goals from one line and continue to have serious issues on special teams. The power play went 0 for 2 and the penalty kill is now 31st in the league, sporting an putrid 65.2% kill rate. Improvement is needed.
Odds & Sods
- After his two-goal outburst in the third, Sam Reinhart is one of four NHLers with six goals. The others are Nikita Kucherov, Auston Matthews and Vancouver’s Brock Boeser.
- The decision to go with backup Casey Smith paid off. The former Penguin stopped 33 shots to collect his second win as a Canuck.
- Matthew Tkachuk is still looking for his first goal after being limited to two shots on goal. Tkachuk finished the game with one hit and a minus-two rating in 18:45 TOI.
- Although they killed it off, Florida’s third penalty (on Dmitry Kulikov) took away momentum, coming 17 seconds after Reinhart’s first goal.
- In addition to getting the secondary assist on Elias Petterssen’s goal, Ilya Mikheyev registered four shots on goal in an effective season debut.
- Sergei Bobrovsky made his fifth-straight start and stopped 26 of 30 shots faced.