In Sunrise, the Florida Panthers fell behind early in their match with the visiting Edmonton Oilers on Monday night.
Connor McDavid and Evander Kane scored in the first period to give the Oilers a 2-0 advantage.
“At the end of the day, we had people who normally don’t get on the score sheet to the extent that they did that was really important,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. “But it was still going to be [Eetu] Luostarinen, [Anton] Lundell and [Sam] Reinhart when [the Oilers] loaded that lineup with the two best offensive players in the National Hockey League (McDavid and Leon Draisaitl). I thought they did a great job.”
McDavid scored with six minutes gone in the first, and Kane hit three minutes later for the two0-goal lead.
“We’re trying to keep the puck out of the net, obviously,” said McDavid. “That is our main focus and, obviously, we have not done that for a number of reasons. We’re always trying to defend.
“There’s lots of fight. I don’t think the resiliency is gone. I think you’re seeing lots of fight. I thought tonight was an emotional game, it could’ve gone either way again, and obviously we find ourselves on the wrong side. Like everyone keeps saying, we’re in the business of winning, and we have to find a way to win.”
Carter Verhaeghe scored at 10:36 of the power play to trim the deficit to 2-1.
Sergei Bobrovsky made 28 saves in the win.
The Panthers improved to 12-5-1.
The Panthers tied it at 2-2 off a marker from Niko Mikkola , his first of two on the night, at 15:53.
“I have never seen anything like it,” Mikkola said. “It was sort of a broken play at the red line. I think it hit a player or something. I tried to pass backdoor to Rodrigues but it went in. I’ll take it.
“It’s good that teammates trust you to jump on the play whenever you see it. We want one [defenseman] always up on the play. I like that.”
The Oilers reclaimed the lead with five minutes gone in the second period off McDavid’s double for a 3-2 lead.
Edmonton dropped to 5-11-1.
“Here we were up 2-0, [the Panthers] need to open up and they need to change the way they’re playing to get some opportunities, and we should be able to take advantage of that,” Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch said. “But unfortunately, I think we were giving them the opporunities.”
Mikkola replied with his second goal of the match just 68 seconds later for a 3-3 tie.
“We’re scoring enough goals to win,” the Oilers Mathias Ekholm said. “We got four on the road in Tampa (a 6-4 loss on Saturday), we scored enough here as well. We just need to limit the chances. No excuses. It’s on us and we need to play better defense. But … I try to clear it, it hits [Hyman’s] back. We just need to stay on the right side and not try and hit the home run play.”
The Panthers took the lead, 4-3, on a strike by Kevin Stenlund at 13:42 of the middle frame.
Sam Bennett iced the game with an empty-net marker with 44 seconds left on the game clock.
“When you’re down 2-0, you’re thinking, ‘slow start,’ but I did not feel that,” Maurice said. “We hit a post, their guy made a great save at the other end. Both goaltenders made some incredible saves. There were not a lot of ‘B’ chances. There were a lot of ‘As.’ I thought we played a heck of a game in here tonight.”
Calvin Pickard made 28 saves in his first start for the Oilers.
You must be logged in to post a comment.