The Florida Panthers were outclassed 5-2 by Elias Pettersson, who scored twice on the man-advantage to reach 200 career goals, and the Vancouver Canucks at Rogers Place.
Pettersson halted a 20-game drought when he smacked Marco Rossi’s crossing pass by Sergei Bobrovsky 3:49 after opening puck drop. Brock Boeser drew the second helper on the power-play goal, which came with Dmitry Kulikov off for hooking.
The Panthers evened it up at 11:41 when Carter Verhaeghe blocked off Petterssen’s clearing attempt and the puck came to Matthew Tkachuk, who quickly beat Kevin Lankinen for his ninth goal.
Petterssen would strike again on the power play 1:59 later. After a taking a backhand drop pass from Rossi, Petterssen loaded up in the right circle and his shot deflected off both Gustav Forsling and Aaron Ekblad before findng the back of the net. Boeser again was credited with the secondary assist.
Rossi and Boeser would collect their third points of the period when the latter set up the former, who was left all alone in front of the net with 2:14 left in the frame. Liam Ohgren got the second assist, backhanding the puck down the boards to Rossi after the Cats failed to exit their zone.
Sam Bennett would match his career-high of 51 points when he took a pass from Matthew Tkachuk and beat an out-of-position Lankinen at 11:28 of the second. Verhaeghe put a backhander on Lankinen that the goaltender poked to Tkachuk, who craftily found the open Bennett.
Florida would hang Bobrovsky out to dry again, with Aatu Raty being the beneficiary at the 14:27 mark. The Panthers got caught up high in the zone, and Elias Pettersen the defenseman got the puck to Evander Kane, who fed Raty down low, after initially whiffing, for the backhand to forehand finish.
Drew O’Connor would complete the scoring with 5:35 left on the clock, taking a centering pass from behind the net from Linus Karlsson off his skate before drilling the puck past Bobrovsky from the low slot. The second assist on the goal went to Tom Willander.
A poor first period, that saw the Canucks score three times on ten shots, put the Panthers in a hole they just couldn’t dig themselves out of. The penalty kill faltered; there were too many defensive zone breakdowns; and Bobrovsky wasn’t great. Couple that with a general lack of shots on goal at the other end and you end up with a three-goal loss to the worst team in the league. No bueno. It’s off to Alberta, where the Panthers will play a Thursday-Friday back-to-back against Edmonton and Calgary.
The Five Hole
- Sam Bennett hit the 25-goal mark for the second consecutive season and matched his career-high of 51 points in his 66th game of the campaign. Bennett had 51 points in 76 games last season.
- Matthew Tkachuk has recorded multiple points in three of his last five games. He has racked up 22 points in 20 games since returning to the lineup.
- Sergei Bobrovsky, who was making his 800th NHL appearance, gave up five goals on 22 shots to suffer his 20th regulation loss of the season.
- Seth Jones logged 20:16 of ice time in his first game since the Winter Classic on January 2. Jones finished with a plus-one rating and was credited with one shot and a hit.
- Tomas Nosek played in his 500th NHL game and Nolan Foote made his Panthers debut. Foote was one of four skaters to register four shots on goal.
Stat Card
