In Sunrise, Aleksander Barkov‘s shorthanded goal with less than seven minutes left in regulation gave the Florida Panthers a 4-3 over the visiting Chicago Blackhawks on Monday night.
The Panthers tacked on two more goals in a 6-3 win.
Sergei Bobrovsky made 26 saves to get the win.
“[Barkov] stepped up at the right time as usual,” Bobrovsky said. “He’s definitely a special player. I think he’s the best player in the world. He does so many things behind that nobody can see. He’s so valuable for us.”
The Panthers improved to 19-5-4.
Patrick Kane staked the Hawks to a 1-0 lead.
“It’s too bad, because I think a lot of guys for a lot of the night were really good,” Blackhawks head coach Jeremy Colliton said. “What happened at the end of the night on the power play was inexcusable and tough to explain how that happens. We’re close, but ultimately the difference was at a key moment of the game, we weren’t up to the task.”
After the Panthers tied it at 1-1, Philipp Kurashev and Brandon Hagel scored for Chicago for a 3-1 lead.
Carter Verhaeghe and Alex Wennberg added empty-net goals over the last two minutes of the game to ice it for Florida.
“We’re just a different team this year and I think the League is starting to notice that,” the Panthers’ MacKenzie Weegar said. “We deserve all the credit that we’re getting right now. It’s fun to be in South Florida.”
Owen Tippett, Gustav Forsling and Aaron Ekblad also scored for Florida.
“It’s not something we want to do for sure,” Ekblad said. “But we’ve all been saying it lately how crazy it is that we are able to come back like that. We don’t want to find ourselves in those positions, but sometimes it does happen. Obviously, we did a good job swinging it back in our favor and finding a way to win this game.”
Kevin Lankinen made 30 saves. in the loss.
“It’s a good reminder of what it takes to win in this league,” Lankinen said. “Every team is good, it’s not easy to win. We can’t let the game slip away for five seconds or five minutes, it’s going to cost you. We’re learning that the hard way now. In the long run we’ll mature, learn from this and be an even better team coming up.”
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