Another big night for Acciari helps the Panthers to a needed win over the Canucks
The breakout season of Noel Acciari continues — and the Florida Panthers left the BB&T Center with a much-needed win on Thursday.
Acciari scored two goals and as the Panthers pulled off a 5-2 rout of the Vancouver Canucks at the BB&T Center to stay in the thick of the playoff race.
Three other Panthers players also scored goals, Jonathan Huberdeau recorded two assists to put himself one point away from tying Olli Jokinen for the franchise’s career points record and Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 30 of 32 shots that came his way to improve to 16-12-4 on the season.
Acciari now has 17 goals on the season and has scored 12 times in the past 12 games since being moved up to the second line. That streak started with his consecutive hat tricks.
“I don’t have a good explanation except he’s got the amazing factor right now,” Panthers coach Joel Quenneville said. “He’s hot as can be with his stick. ... It’s pretty amazing what he’s achieved already.”
On Thursday, it started in the opening minute. Acciari received a feed from Vincent Trocheck, who tapped the puck backward with his skate while making a forecheck on a Vancouver player behind the net. Acciari quickly tapped the puck past goaltender Thatcher Demko from the left of the net to give the Panthers (23-16-5) a lead they wouldn’t relinquish.
It finished about seven minutes into the third period when he deflected an Aaron Ekblad’s shot from the blue line.
“It’s a good streak going right now, but you don’t want to think about it too much,” Acciari said. “Just keep playing the game. Just get in the right area.”
The Panthers, who now have 51 points on the season and moved within one point tying of the idle Carolina Hurricanes and Philadelphia Flyers for the Eastern Conference’s two wild card spots, added two more first-period goals from Mark Pysyk and Evgenii Dadonov. Both scored on two-on-one rushes down the ice.
Pysyk took a feed from Colton Sceviour and buried it just in front of the net two minutes after Acciari’s goal to put Florida up 2-1. Dadonov scored with 1:07 left in the initial period on a feed from Barkov. It was Pysyk’s third goal of the season and Dadonov’s team-leading 19th.
Mike Hoffman made the lead 4-1 with his snap shot from the right circle during a power play with 16:20 left in the second. Huberdeau, who had the secondary assist on Dadonov’s first-period goal, made a pair of nifty moves to shake off Canucks defenseman Christopher Tanev before passing to Hoffman, who has now scored in three consecutive games and has a five-game point streak.
Brock Boeser and Tyler Motte scored for the Canucks (23-17-4), who have dropped back-to-back games by a combined score of 14-4 after winning seven consecutive games before this skid.
Outside of those two goals, Bobrovsky was solid in his first game back in net since being pulled midway through Florida’s 3-2 road loss to the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday. Highlighting his night included stopping a pair of point-blank shots from Boeser just feet in front of the net midway through the first and a big glove save on a Tanner Pearson snap shot late in the second.
“I thought guys helped me a lot today,” Bobrovsky said. “They were solid. ... It was a great game. Everybody contributed.”
This and that
▪ Defenseman MacKenzie Weegar missed his eighth consecutive game with an upper-body injury. Weegar returned to practice in a non-contact jersey on Wednesday.
▪ Barkov snapped a five-game pointless streak with his assist on Dadonov’s goal.
▪ Brian Boyle recorded his 100th career NHL assist with the secondary helper on Pysyk’s first-period goal.
This story was originally published January 9, 2020 at 9:37 PM.
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