Coach Quenneville’s hunch helps Florida Panthers end winless streak

It wasn’t positionless hockey. Nor was it finding a new market inefficiency.

Rather it was a hunch that Joel Quenneville had. He was going to have defensemen Mike Matheson and Mark Pysyk skate with on other side of Noel Acciari on the fourth line.

And they made Quenneville look prescient, as the triumvirate combined for eight points in the Panthers’ 5-3 win over the Devils on Tuesday night at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.

“They know how to sustain and how to hold onto pucks in the offensive zone,” Quenneville said. “They all scored a goal, which is unbelievable. They really did set the tone for our team, playing the right way.”

Pysyk and Matheson each recorded a goal and two assists, and Acciari finished with a goal and an assist. Brett Connolly and Frank Vatrano also scored, and Sam Montembeault made 25 saves in his first start since Nov. 24.

In snapping their four-game winless streak, the Panthers improved to 30-20-6. They had entered the day fourth in the division — two points behind Toronto for third in the Atlantic — but 10th in the conference and five points behind Philadelphia for the second wild-card spot.

In the Panthers’ previous six games, the Panthers had allowed 22 goals (3.67 goals against average) and had only scored 10 (1.67). It was a formula to go 1-4-1.

So going into the first intermission with a 2-1 lead could have been viewed as a needed bit of course correction. Even if these aren’t the Devils of Martin Brodeur and Scott Stevens; of Ken Daneyko and Patrik Elias and Scott Niedermayer; of nearly two decades of sustained excellence. Rather it is an edition that traded its best player (Taylor Hall), and fired its coach (John Hynes) and general manager (Ray Shero) in a six-week span, and is looking toward the draft lottery instead of the playoffs.

The Panthers fell behind 1-0 on Jack Hughes’ power-play goal from the left circle 3:15 into the the game.

“We didn’t let it bother us too much,” Anton Stralman said.

Connolly tied the score at 1 with 8:10 left in the period, firing a dart from the left circle past Louis Domingue (28 saves) at 11:50 for his 18th of the season, and Matheson put the Panthers ahead 2-1 with his seventh of the season with 45.4 seconds left in the period.

“They didn’t look like defensemen to me,” said Devils wing Kyle Palmieri. “The offense they generated was the way you want to generate offense.”

The fourth line struck again 2:43 into the second period when Matheson set up Pysyk for his eighth of the season. New Jersey cut the lead to 3-2 on Kevin Rooney’s’s fourth of the season at 4:17, but Vatrano (4:59) and Acciari (5:38) scored back-to-back goals in a 39-second span to essentially decide the outcome, although Kyle Palmieri’s semi-breakaway goal with 5:30 left in the period made it 5-3.

Montembeault made the lead hold up, despite facing 13 shots in the third period.

“I just felt better as the game went on,” Montembeault said. “It’s easier as a goalie when you have a lead like that.”