In Denver, the visiting Florida Panthers hit for four goals in the third period on Saturday en route to an 8-4 win over the Avalanche.
Sam Reinhart hit for a hat trick in the win.
“You see a couple go in early, it’s easier to roll that confidence kind of over and over, and [I’m] playing with some pretty good players as well,” Reinhart said. “When you can get on a roll like this, it takes some pressure off of some other times throughout the season when it’s not going well.”
The Panthers improved to 25-12-2 off their seventh straight win.
Sergei Bobrovsky made 23 saves in the win.
The Panthers jumped out arly to a 3-0 lead before the midway point of the opening stanza.
“To come out that quickly and get a lead like that and then have it disappear on you just as fast, I don’t know,” Florida coach Paul Maurice said. “I liked the fact that our bench didn’t get too high or too low. Even up three we were pretty solid, and then down and even.”
Carter Verhaeghe scored the first of his goals 70 seconds into the game for a 1-0 lead to the Panthers.
Reinhart then hit for a pair of goals to push the advantage to 3-0. His first came 3:02.
“Both ends of the ice, he’s an amazing player,” Barkov, the Florida captain, said of Reinhart. “He just reads the game so well. He plays the game so well, and on top of it he’s a very big threat to score goals and make plays.”
Reinhart potted his second at 7:41 off a breakaway for the 3-0 lead.
“I know it’s a hat trick, but we’ve seen that hockey from him all year,” Maurice said. “So consistent with it. Barkov too. He’s just such an astute hockey man, he can pick up the changes in the game very quickly.”
The Avs dropped to 25-12-3.
“I liked the way we stuck with it,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. “I’m not going to lie to you. I mean, it’s a game that had everything, right? I didn’t like our start. Besides that, I liked our game. You’re playing a team that’s got a bunch of dangerous guys, and you’re doing a good job suppressing chances for the better part of the game. You fight back in the game. You tie it once. You give up a bad goal, you tie it again.”
In the middle frame, the Avalanche rallied back to tie it, 3-3.
Cale Makar trimmed the deficit to 3-1 with 21 seconds gone in the period.
Colorado struck again, 31 seconds later for a 3=2 score off a marker from Josh Manson.
“I think we came out in the second with a different mindset,” Makar said. “We just went out there and we started attacking them and kind of tilted the ice a little bit in our direction, and then [got] some momentum from that.”
Valeri Nichushkin knotted it at 3-3 at 4:34 of the middle frame.
The Panthers regained the lead,m 4-3 on a strike by Oliver Ekman-Larsson at 8:50 of the second period.
The third period opened with the Avalanche getting a tying marker form Jonathan Drouin at 3:31 for a 4-4 score.
“This year, we’ve come back from a couple of three-goal [deficits],” Makar said. “So I think, in the back of everybody’s head, we know we’re capable of doing that when we play our game. Being able to come back out in the second and tie it up pretty early on and then just kind of keep battling shows a lot of character in our group, but at the end of the day, it’s tough to let that one slip away.”
After Reinhart gave the Panthers the lead, Kevin Stenlund pushed it to 6-4 at 8:59 with a backhand from the right circle following a face-off.
“Coming in here, we know how good of a team they are, how good they play at home,” the Panthers’ Alexander Barkov said. “Another big one for us. It’s all about the hard work, and obviously [the] second period we didn’t like, but it’s OK. We concentrated on the third and got the job done.”
Reinhart collected his hats at 5:59 of the third fort a 5-4 lead to the Panthers, off a power play strike..
Kevin Stenlund extended the advantage to 6-4 for the Panthers at 8:59 .
The Panthers added two empty-net goals with Matthew Tkachuk scoring at 16:17, and
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Verhaeghe adding one at 16:54 made it an 8-4 final count.
Ivan Prosvetov got the start for the Avalanche, he yielded four goals and made nine saves before getting hook just ahead of the midway point of the second period.
Alexandar Georgiev made 12 saves in a mop up effort.
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