In Washington, DC, the Florida Panthers scored early in the third period to tie their match with the Capitals, 3-3, on Wednesday night.
Evan Rodrigues scored at 3:33 of the third to tie the game and eventually force the extra session.
Sam Reinhart scored the game-winner with just 15 seconds gone in the session for the 4-3 win.
“[Rodrigues] made a good play to retrieve the puck and got it up to ‘Barky,’ and he noticed as well that we just kind of had a little break, and he did a good job putting it hard enough for me to skate into it there,” Reinhart said.
Sergei Bobrovsky made 25 saves in the victory.
The Panthers improved to 7-4-1.
“We’ve had some great starts in games, we’ve got some comeback wins, so we know the ability is there,” Rodrigues said. “I think now it’s just continuing to do the small things over and over again, and that’s how you kind of put together a full 60 (minutes). There’s definitely no quit in this team, and no matter what the score is we’re not going to roll over. It was a big win tonight.”
The Caps took a 1-0 lead midway through the opening stanza on a deflected pass from Anthony Mantha which ended up in the net.
Two minutes later, Oliver Ekman-Larsson tied it ,1-1, for the Panthers.
“We’ve actually been trying that pretty much the whole year, trying to make that play happen,” Rodrigues said. “There are teams that it has been open against. He makes a great play. A big goal, and it helped us get the win
The Caps dropped to 5-4-2.
“We made some egregious mistakes with the puck that, against a team like them, you just can’t make,” Washington coach Spencer Carbery said. “We just made some really mind-boggling plays with the puck, decisions with the puck, positional stuff in the second and third periods.”
Aleksander Barkov pushed the Panthers into the lead, 2-1, at 16:45.
Connor McMichael hit for a shorthanded goal at 6:13 of the middle frame to tie the game for Washington, 2-2.
Mantha scored his double at 15:15 of the second to give the Caps a 3-2 lead headed to the third period.
“[Mantha] beat the backchecker and I just had to slide it over to him, and he had a good finish,” McMichael said.
Darcy Kuemper made 21 saves in the loss.
You must be logged in to post a comment.