Panthers lose Barkov to injury and the game to the Blackhawks

The Florida Panthers suffered a loss just before Tuesday night’s game started.

Then the game happened, and the Panthers lost that also, 3-2, to the host Chicago Blackhawks.

First things first: Captain Aleksander Barkov left the ice midway through warmups and was scratched due to a lower-body injury.

Barkov, who entered Tuesday leading the Panthers with 37 points, rarely misses games — just three in the previous two seasons combined and just six in the past three years.

“It’s huge,” Jonathan Huberdeau said when asked by Fox Sports Florida about the loss of Barkov, who is listed as day-to-day. “We all know he’s a big [piece of the] puzzle on this team.”

As for the game, the Blackhawks got goals from Dominik Kubalik, Pius Suter and Carl Soderberg. Patrick Kane added two assists, and Kevin Lankinen made 33 saves.

For the Panthers, Anton Stralman and Alex Wennberg scored. Noel Acciari had two assists, and Chris Driedger made 29 saves.

Coupled with Sunday’s 5-3 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning, this marked the first time this season that the Panthers have lost consecutive games in regulation.

The Panthers, who have won four of five games against Chicago this season, are still in third place in the Central Division. The fourth-place Blackhawks now trail Florida by nine points.

Chicago, which snapped a four-game losing streak, opened the scoring with just 6:24 expired in the first period. Brandon Hagel picked up a loose puck in the neutral zone and then started a rush. He dished to Kubalik, who slipped the puck between Driedger’s pads.

The Blackhawks took a 2-0 lead with only 90 seconds left in the first. Nikita Zadorov flipped a shot toward the net, and Suter deflected the puck, which dove straight down and past Driedger.

After a slashing penalty on Panthers forward Owen Tippett, Chicago went up 3-0 on Soderberg’s power-play goal with 4:22 gone in the second period. Kane’s set-up pass was so precise that Soderberg just had to redirect the puck from point-blank range.

Florida got on the board with 8:53 elapsed in the second. The Panthers, after not scoring on their first power-play chance of the night, kept the puck in the offensive zone, scoring 23 seconds after Chicago had returned to even strength.

Acciari did most of the heavy lifting on the play, winning a battle for the puck and dishing a backhand pass through the legs of Ian Mitchell. The pass connected with Stralman, who did not miss on the open right side of the net.

“He can fit in any role,” Stralman said of Acciari. “Right now, he’s filling in for Barkov, and that’s not an easy role. But he kind of looked like ‘Barky’ there. That was unbelievable.”

Acciari briefly left the game with 17:35 left in third period after getting cross-checked by Zadorov.

The officials didn’t catch that transgression, but Zadorov was later penalized for hooking Huberdeau. That resulted in Wennberg’s power-play goal with 4:38 left in the third. Wennberg played the puck off his skate and then, from just behind the net, bounced it off of Lankinen, closing Florida’s deficit to 3-2.

The Panthers then pulled Driedger for an extra attacker with 2:39 left. Unfortunately for the Panthers, they lost a draw, and Aaron Ekblad was forced to take a hooking penalty to prevent an empty-net goal by Mattias Janmark.

Once the penalty expired, the Panthers had one more great chance at a tying goal, but a diving Chicago defenseman, Connor Murphy, broke up a shot attempt by Patrick Hornqvist with 4.4 seconds left.

THIS AND THAT

▪ Acciari on losing Barkov: “You can’t replace that guy. He is very valuable to us. We missed him out there.”

▪ Vinnie Hinostroza, who was not on the ice for warmups, took Barkov’s spot on the active roster. It was just Hinostroza’s eighth game of the season (no points).

▪ Panthers left winger Brett Connolly, who scored 41 goals the past two seasons but has just one this year, was put back in the lineup for the first time since Feb. 27. The last time he had a point was Feb. 19, and his most recent goal was on Feb. 11.

This story was originally published March 23, 2021 at 11:23 PM.