In Sunrise, the Colorado Avalanche scored twice in the first stanza to take a 2-0 lead on the Panthers.
Florida rallied in the second period to tie the game, 2-2, but the Avs outscored the Panthers 3-1 over the back half of the match for a 5-3 win.
Colorado bounced back from a 5-0 shelling at the hands of the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday night.
Alexandar Georgiev made 42 saves in the Colorado win.
The Avalanche moved to 28-19-4.
Logan O’Connor and Matt Nieto scored for the Avs in the first period for the 20 lead.
“Frustrating start to the game,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. “We were slow but did battle back. You look back on this one and it was even. The difference was special teams. They got a power play and got a short-handed one, which kind of set us on our heels a bit. They played well and I thought we got better as the game went along.”
The Panthers retaliated with two strikes in the second period from Aaron Ekblad and Sam Bennett for a 2-2 tie.
Colorado responded quickly with Devon Toews putting the Avs back in front, 3-2, 25 seconds after the Panthers tied it.
“I like our response after they made it 2-2 probably the best,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. “I thought we were playing a good hockey game up 2-0. Once they got those two and the building started going, I was getting a little nervous about what our response would be. And then right away we answer and score to get the lead again. So I like to stick-to-itiveness of our team tonight.”
Nathan MacKinnon scored off the power play for his first of his two on the night to make it 4-2 headed to the third period,
“We had a lot of chances up,” MacKinnon said. “We were due, I thought, and we finally broke through.”
The Panthers had their three-game win streak snapped in the loss which dropped them to 26-23-6.
Florida trimmed the Avs lead to one at 4-3 with nine minutes left in the game on a marker from Aleksander Barkov.
But MacKinnon hit an empty net for the 5-3 final.
“We felt calm all night,” MacKinnon said. “I think even at the end there. I thought we handled that PK, the 6-on-5 really well. Just great to see.”
Sergei Bobrovsky made 45 saves in the Panthers loss.
“We did not get the start we wanted,” said Barkov. “They dominated us in the first period. I don’t know what happened there, but we came back and played a solid game at the end. We just did not get the goal or get the win at the end.”
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