Florida Panthers rally from four-goal deficit again, win in overtime
The Florida Panthers found themselves in an all-too-familiar spot against the Anaheim Ducks on Thursday.
Trailing multiple goals late. Needing to overcome a sloppy start. Hoping their high-octane offense would overcome miscues on defense.
And, man, does this team know how to put together a comeback.
For the second time in five games, the Panthers erased a four-goal deficit — something they had never done in franchise history beforehand — with slick and timely goals after the game felt out of reach.
And once again, the Rally Cats get a miraculous win
Final score in overtime from the BB&T Center: Panthers 5, Ducks 4.
Aaron Ekblad scored the game winner 22 seconds into overtime to give the Panthers (12-5-5) their third consecutive win, their fifth win in the past six and their seventh in their last 10.
“It’s crazy,” Ekblad said. “Great team effort. ... Really, it’s all belief from every guy. You’re sitting on the bench and goals are going in, but nobody’s really freaking out. Everybody’s calm, cool, collected.”
It was virtually a replica of the Panthers’ 5-4 win against the Boston Bruins on Nov. 12. They trailed 4-0 going into the third period in that game, tied it up and won in a shootout.
Coach Joel Quenneville called that win improbable.
His thoughts after repeating the feat Thursday?
“More than improbable,” Quenneville said. “We were playing probably our poorest game up to that point in the last 22 minutes.”
The Panthers are just the second team to overcome multiple deficits of at least four goals in a season. The other: The 1983-84 Stanley Cup-winning Edmonton Oilers.
“We’re confident we can come back in any situation,” Ekblad said. “Obviously, you don’t want to be in that situation all that often, but it’s a huge win.”
Brett Connolly started the Panthers’ rally with two goals in a 27-second stretch in the final 1:07 of the second period to cut the Panthers’ four-goal deficit in half going into the final 20 minutes of regulation. Connolly now has 10 goals on the season, tying with Jonathan Huberdeau and Evgenii Dadonov for the team lead.
“Guys kept working,” Connolly said. “We’ve been doing it all year. We just haven’t quit.”
Ekblad cut the deficit to one goal when he buried a shot from the right side just beyond the blue line with 8:05 left in regulation.
Dominic Toninato, recalled from the Panthers’ American Hockey League affiliate Springfield Thunderbirds on Monday, scored the game-tying goal with 4:23 left in regulation to force overtime.
But for the first 39 minutes, Anaheim (10-10-3) looked like the superior team.
They opened scoring with 2:45 left in the first period when a deflected puck found Max Jones’ stick in front of the net and Panthers goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky out of position. Jones buried the short shot for the 1-0 lead.
A Nick Ritchie slap shot made it 2-0 early in the second period. Rickard Rakell tapped in a power play goal with 4:10 left in the middle stanza and then Ondrej Kase added an unassisted wrist shot off a bad Panthers turnover in their defensive zone about three minutes later to give Anaheim the 4-0 lead.
Bobrovsky had saved the first 10 shots against him on Thursday. He gave up goals on four of the next 12 Ducks attempts. He was perfect in the third period, saving all 10 shots that came against him.
“You need him to make some key saves,” Quenneville said, “because you’re opening it up, you’re taking some chances. You hope not, but there are going to be some odd-man situations. ... They had some quality, all-alone looks and he made two or three big, big saves and gave us a chance.”
The Rally Cats came to life from there.
This story was originally published November 21, 2019 at 9:48 PM.
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