In Sunrise Monday night, Mike Hoffman scored with 1:25 gone in overtime to give the Florida Panthers a 4-3 win over the New Jersey Devils.
Hoffman rang a puck off the iron 25 seconds earlier to seemingly win the game before video review waived it off.
“I didn’t see it at all, if it went in or not,” Hoffman said. “I shot it kind of through the goalie and heard it hit the post, and then that’s all I saw. Yeah, it was close, and then Huberdeau made an excellent play to finish it off. All I really had to do was hit the net. It was a good comeback win for us, good character win. This group has been searching for that for a little bit now, and it’s nice to see.”
Mike Hoffman scored OT winner for Panthers – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
The Panthers’ Jonathan Huberdeau forced the extra session when he tied the game, 3-3, with 1:29 left in regulation
“We had the lead going into the last couple of minutes here. They got a bounce on the 6-on-5 goal, but in overtime, I lost my man there. They’re good players, they make plays. Can’t happen. It’s my job, and that last goal is on me. Obviously, we battled today and didn’t get it,” Travis Zajac said of giving up the lead late.
James Reimer, made 29 saves for the win.
“It feels good for our confidence. The last game kind of hurt us a little bit at the end. Right now, we needed the two points. We’ve just got to keep going. I think we need a lot more,” Huberdeau said after tying the game late.
Miles Wood, Blake Coleman and Jesper Bratt scored for New Jersey who dropped to 9-10-4.
“We’ve got to keep working at it,” coach John Hynes said. “It’s been different situations, different guys, different things. When you look at it, there’s not one particular trend. The last couple of games, we lost the first face-offs; tonight, we won the first face-off, had possession. We’ll continue to work at it.”
Aleksander Barkov and Jared McCann also scored for Florida.
“I’m a guy who shoots first,” McCann said. “I feel like I’ve been getting pucks to the net and through defenders, which I wasn’t before, and they’ve been going in for me.”
[WATCH: All Devils vs. Panthers highlights]
Keith Kinkaid made 30 saves in the loss.
“I think we played all around a good game, but losing like that, it’s not easy,” Devils forward Nico Hischier said. “But (we have to) forget it, go to sleep, and come back to work tomorrow and just stick with it.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.