Hoping to get back on track, the Florida Panthers struggled against one of the hotter teams in the league lately on Saturday night.
Florida showed some real spark and appeared at times to be rolling right along, but they were ultimately overwhelmed by the Colorado Avalanche, losing 7-4.
It didn’t take long for the Panthers to get things off on the right foot.
On the game’s opening shift, Carter Verhaeghe corralled the puck along the boards in the right faceoff circle and sent a long wrister toward the net.
The puck found its way over the shoulder of Alexandar Georgiev and just like that, Florida was up 1-0.
A funky looking goal that saw a Cale Makar shot deflect off Jonathan Drouin in front of Sergei Bobrovsky tied the game at the 9:13 mark.
Panthers captain Sasha Barkov scored a goal that showed off his hand-eye coordination.
Niko Mikkola fired a wrist shot form the point that was deflected by Matthew Tkachuk on its way to the net. Georgiev saved it, and the rebound fluttered into the air, where Barkov was waiting and knocked it into the net.
It appeared that Barkov may have hit the puck with high stick, but Avalanche Head Coach Jared Bednar ultimately decided not to challenge and risk going shorthanded.
Cats goalie Sergei Bobrovsky came up with a pair of big saves late in the period, one with his glove on a Mikko Rantanen breakaway and one with his blocker on Parker Kelly while sliding side to side.
Bob’s save run ended shortly after the puck dropped on the second period, with Drouin’s second of the night tying the game 34 seconds in.
Logan O’Connor gave the Avalanche their first lead of the night, streaking in on Bobrovsky and wiring a shot over his blocker that went bar down.
A Samuel Girard wrist shot from the point deflected off Dmitry Kulikov and trickled past Bobrovsky at the 8:54 mark and suddenly Florida was down by two.
Things stayed that way for about 10 minutes until Girard send a perfect pass to Rantanen at the back door, and he tapped it into the net to extend the Avs lead to three.
Florida finally started pulling some of the momentum back in their favor thanks to a hooking call on Ivan Ivan and a subsequent power play goal by who else by Sam Reinhart.
Colorado put the final nail in the coffin late in the third period, with Oliver Kylington scoring his first goal of the season from the high slot into the top corner of the net.
Florida tried pulling Bobrovsky for some late magic, but that just led to an empty-net goal from Valeri Nichushkin with 2:45 to go.
Anton Lundell scored a nice tap-in goal off a great pass from Mackie Samoskevich to give Florida a fourth goal, so there’s that.
On to the Capitals.
QUICK THOUGHTS
Reinhart extended his point streak to 13 games with his second period power play goal. He’s got 11 goals and 19 points during the run.
Barkov may not be on a point streak anymore, but he’s racked up 18 points over his past 11 outings.
Verhaeghe’s goal was his first since he netted two against Nashville seven games ago.
Lundell’s assist on Verhaeghe’s goal was his first point since that same Nashville game.
Tkachuk has logged two multi-point games over his past three outings after logging a pair of assists Saturday.
Samoskevich logged a pair of assists for his first multi-point game in the NHL.
Aaron Ekblad has quietly logged three points over his past for games after notching an assist on Reinhart’s goal.
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