In Washington, DC, Matthew Tkachuk and Sam Reinhart scored in the third for the Florida Panthers on Saturday to snap a 2-2 tie with the Capitals en route to a 4-2win.
The win enabled the Panthers to keep pace with the New York Islanders in the wild card race in the Eastern Conference.
“He’s (Tkachuk) just a gamer, right?” Florida coach Paul Maurice said. “He’s so focused when he gets to the rink. He’s not distracted by anything, even [when he] gets popped a couple times or there’s scrums in front of the net. The puck drops, and he’s back focused on the game. And you start to get the sense that you’re hanging around a little bit of greatness there, right? Big game, big goal guy, and then he’s done it all year.”
The Isles and Panthers are tied, one point ahead of the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Tkachuk had the game-winner on his 40th of the campaign.
“I knew there wasn’t much time on the clock, so I just decided no such thing as a bad shot there, I guess, and it worked out,” Tkachuk said.
Alex Lyon made 22 saves in the win.
The Panthers moved to 42-31-7.
“We have to keep it going,” Tkachuk said. “Teams around us are winning and fortunately for us, we kind of control our destiny here. So, we’ve just got to keep winning here. We all want to make it in so bad, so we’re just doing whatever it takes right now to make sure that happens.”
Tom Wilson and Dylan Strome were the Caps strikers.
“It’s unfortunate the way it ended,” Washington coach Peter Laviolette said. “I thought the guys played hard tonight. They competed hard, they were invested, they were physical, they were skating. They had to overcome a lot of things on the ice.”
After a scoreless first period, Strome put the Caps up, 1-0, Carter Verhaeghe tied it, 1-1.
“I love that third. I love the way we came out,” Reinhart said. “You know sometimes when you’re playing well, it takes a while to finally break through. I think just some relief there that there’s not a bounce that goes the other way so. Obviously, a big goal by [Tkachuk] to put us ahead.”
The Panthers’ Aaron Ekblad, and Wilson exchanged goals for a 2-2 tie coming out of the middle frame.
Charlie Lindgren made 33 saves in the Caps loss.
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