Panthers drop 3rd straight — 2nd in a row without Barkov — and lose Hornqvist to injury
Jonathan Huberdeau rubbed his hand through his damp hair and pushed sweat off his forehead. He panted as he plopped down in his chair for a press conference after another frustrating loss for the Florida Panthers in Chicago and had to catch his breath when he started to diagnose what went wrong for the second straight game against the Chicago Blackhawks.
It gave him a moment to gather himself. The Panthers, even without Aleksander Barkov, piled up 41 shots and got five chances on the power play. They got a 3-on-0 rush with Huberdeau, their All-Star left wing, leading the break. They got, essentially, all the chances they could have hoped to do and still lost 3-0 to fall into their first three-game losing streak of the season.
“I don’t know,” he began. “Obviously, we got a lot of shots.”
They started with 13 in the first period, then 17 in the second and even 11 in the third, and Blackhawks goaltender Kevin Lankinen stopped every one of them. The rookie , who is perhaps the frontrunner for the Calder Memorial Trophy, made 41 saves, including 13 against Florida’s power play. Late in the second period, he made four saves in 19 seconds to kill off the Panthers’ third power play. Even later in the second, he stopped Huberdeau on the 3-on-0 rush and then he denied Florida (20-9-4) on four more power plays in the final 22:24.
In the third, star right wing Patric Hornqvist went down with an apparent lower-body injury, leaving the Panthers without two of their three most productive forwards and they stumbled to only their sixth multi-goal loss of the season.
Florida, which hadn’t lost back-to-back games in regulation until Tuesday at the United Center, has now lost three in a row, including back-to-back since Barkov went down with a lower-body injury.
Both Barkov and Hornqvist are “day to day,” Joel Quenneville said.
“We’ll see how he is tomorrow,” the coach said of Hornqvist. “We think he’ll be alright.”
The loss drops the Panthers three points behind the second-place Carolina Hurricanes in the Central Division, while fourth-place Chicago (16-13-4) moves within seven points of Florida.
The Panthers wasted from the first period all the way through the end of the game and conceded two goals in 2:29 early in the second to drop both ends of a two-game series in Illinois.
Florida went 0 for 2 on the power play in the first period, peppering Lankinen with four shots. On the first, defenseman Keith Yandle ripped a pair of slap shots from the point. On the second, Huberdeau hit the post. The Panthers controlled the zone time, they just could never beat Lankinen
“He was pretty good in net,” Huberdeau said. “We can have more grade-A chances and obviously we didn’t score a goal, so we’ve just got to be better. ... I think we’re trying to be too cute.”
Right before the end of the period, Florida committed its first penalty of the game and Chicago (16-13-5) started the second on the power play. With 18:55 left, Patrick Kane put the them ahead for good.
Blackhawks defenseman Adam Boqvist cranked a shot from the slot and a scramble ensued around Sergei Bobrovsky. Three skaters fell to the ice. Multiple Chicago wound up in the goaltender’s crease. Bobrovsky sprawled to his stomach and tried to cover the puck, but Kane pulled it away from the chaos, curled it onto his stick and zipped in the go-ahead goal. Quenneville opted not to challenge and the Panthers fell behind 1-0.
Less than three minutes later, Kane created another. Florida gave away the puck in the neutral zone and the superstar right wing sent a cross-ice pass to Alex DeBrincat on the left side. Chicago’s star winger fired a shot at Bobrovsky and the goalie let up a big rebound, which Blackhawks forward Pius Suter knocked home for a 2-0 lead.
Bobrovsky finished with 18 saves on 20 shots and Chicago sealed the win with an empty-net goal with 1:24 remaining.
Bob played great for us, too,” left wing Mason Marchment said. “We just need to get a couple on the board for him.”
The Panthers kept firing at Lankinen on the other end, but couldn’t beat the goalie. Their best chances came near the end of the second period, first on a power play.
Defenseman Markus Nutivaara started a flurry with a shot from the point and a loose puck rattled around just outside the crease. Marchment pounced and couldn’t put it home, and Lankinen dove to his stomach. Left wing Owen Tippett found the puck again, gathered it and fired, and Lankinen denied him with the knob of his stick and meat of the pad on his extended right leg. The deficit stayed at 2-0.
Less than four minutes, Huberdeau, Hornqvist and center Alex Wennberg charged down the ice themselves, without a defender between them and the goal. Huberdeau passed across the net to Wennberg, who passed back to Huberdeau and the forward shot right into Lankinen.
In the three losses, Florida is averaging 36 shots and only 1.7 goals per game.
“Every good team runs into spurts like this where it’s just not going in,” Marchment said. “It’s just how it’s going, and it’s just going to take one garbage goal and it’s just going to come flooding right back in.”
This story was originally published March 25, 2021 at 10:30 PM.
