In Sunrise, the Panthers took a a 1-0 lead over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday night in the first period.
In the middle frame, the Pens’ special teams went to work with a shorthanded goal from Kris Letang and a power play strike from Jake Guentzel for a 2-1 lead en route to a 5-4-2 win over the Panthers.
“Especially the first game, me and [associate coach Todd Reirden] were talking just to see how I feel,” Letang said. “But once you settle into games and practices, your conditioning goes up and I can go back to the minutes I play.”
Tristan Jarry made 32 saves in the Pittsburgh win.
Ryan Lomberg scored in the first period to give the Panthers a 1-0 lead.
“They’re obviously a really good team. They have some great leadership there,” Lomberg said. “So, we knew they were going to push. But at the end of the day, we’ve got to start getting two points.”
The Pens improved to 12-1-1 in their last 14, and are now 18-8-4 overall.
Evgeni Malkin scored in the third period to push the lead to 3-1. He left the ice shortly after and did not return for an apparent injury.
Midway through the third period, Sam Reinhart got on back for the Panthers to make it 3-2 to the Pens.
Florida dropped to 14-13-4.
“Five-on-5, I think they played their butts off, short a guy up front,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. “It was a sprint game. There was no way to play that but full-out. I thought we did, 5-on-5, against a pretty good team tonight.”
Guentzel completed his double into an empty net with less than two minutes left in the game for the 4-2 final.
“That’s a big part of the game nowadays, you have to make sure you’re winning special teams,” Guentzel said of the Pens power play unit. “I think we did that tonight. Came out with the right result.”
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Sergei Bobrovsky made 35 saves in the Florida loss.
“Five-on-5, I think we controlled a lot of the play,” said Florida’s Carter Verhaeghe. “We still need to do a better job generating a little more, getting pucks to the net and getting some higher-quality looks.”
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