In Chicago, the Blackhawks did not quite have enough at the end to force overtime with the Florida Panthers on Saturday night.
“We gave up far too much,” Chicago head coach Jeremy Colliton said. “I thought we turned the puck over, fed their transition, they’re an excellent transition team. They make you pay when you turn it over. I also thought they jumped by us in transition a lot and created a lot from that.”
Trailing 5-2 late in the game, the Hawks posted two goals from Kirby Dach and Dominik Kubalik to get within5-4.
“You can look at the standings, you look at this and some nights you’re going to say, you’ve still got some games left to be played before we’re playing for keeps,” Florida head coach Joel Quenneville said. “These guys, they’re continuing on with good habits and good purpose, being great pros, good leadership, and it sends a good message to some of the younger guys as well.”
Sergei Bobrovksy made 31 saves to get the win.
Anthony Duclair had two goals and three points for the Panthers.
“He’s playing well,” Quenneville said. “He has some speed, had a couple of pretty plays there. I thought that line played good, [Barkov] had a real good game, I think [Grigori Denisenko] is coming along nicely. They were effective in some other ways as well. [Duclair], it was one of those nights where he had the puck a lot in some interesting places.”
Aleksander Barkov, Owen Tippet and Gustav Forsling added single markers for the Panthers.
“It was good help by [Brett Connolly] on the draw, and obviously a great shot by [Murphy] there and it went in,” Florida’s Adam Gaudette said. “There was a little bit of confusion on the second one in our zone and saw an opportunity to skate, had a move there, saw [DeBrincat] out of the corner of my eye and it was a good finish by him.”
Connor Murphy and Alex DeBrincat also scored for the Blackhawks who are 0-3-1 in their last four.
“We had a really good start for the third period,” Barkov said. “We scored goals in the first two shifts and kind of put the game away. But obviously they’re a good team there, they have some skill, they battled back and gave a good run at the end. But we just closed it out and tried to play our own game the whole third period.”
Kevin Lankinen made 37 saves in the loss.
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