In Newark, Sam Reinhart hit for a double on Saturday night in a 4-2 win for the Florida Panthers over the New Jersey Devils.
New Jersey has lost five straight.
Sergei Bobrovsky made 29 saves in the Panthers win.
“We needed an effort like that,” Reinhart said. “It’s games like that that kind of get the ball rolling and momentum going in the right direction. Hopefully, we can build off that.”
Florida improved to 15-13-4.
“Obviously, they had a push, but I thought our guys kept our composure,” Bobrovsky said. “They worked hard and they shut them down. … Over the course of the regular season, there are different circumstances and different hurdles. I thought the guys did a great job to compete and fight.”
Reinhart scored off the power play in the first period to give the Panthers a 1-0 lead.
In the middle frame, Gustav Forsling pushed the lead to 2-0 at 7:49.
New Jersey replied with a marker from John Marino at 11:27 to cut the deficit to 2-1.
“Again, we get behind right off the start,” New Jersey coach Lindy Ruff said. “Take a penalty, they score a power-play goal. You look at a couple of the goals, they’re not goals we want to give up. … What was the strength of our team was really how well we play defensively. When you start to get a little frustrated offensively, you start to cheat.
“The backbone of our game has been how well we play defensively. We can’t get away from that.”
Reinhart restored the two-goal lead at 19-19 of the frame for a 3-1 advantage headed to the third period.
“I didn’t really like our start,” New Jersey defenseman Brendan Smith said. “Give credit to them. They came out and they played a physical, fast game. They were on us. That’s kind of our recipe. We didn’t really get to that until later in the second.
“We keep spotting teams these goals. It seems like a lot of it is us doing it. … I’m still positive that we have it to get to that next level, but right now, it’s too hard when you keep spotting teams goals.”
New Jersey dropped to 21-8-2.
New Jersey made it 3-2 at 16:30 of the third on a goal from Erik Haula.
“We’re playing well. We just keep spotting the other team chances,” Marino said. “Those breakdowns are key. Losing those games, especially tight ones like this, we hate losing this many tight ones in a row, too. So just have to tighten that up.”
With 71 seconds left in regulation, Florida;s Carter Verhaeghe hit an empty net for the 4-2 final.
“I liked our first period an awful lot,” Florida coach Paul Maurice said. “I thought we had a good template of how we wanted to play the game. Then we got into a little trouble. After that, it was just will. Grind, block shots, spit it out, spit it in and get to the net.”
Akira Schmid made 24 saves in the New Jersey loss.
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