With playoffs locked up, Panthers put future on display vs. Stars — and it looks bright
The Florida Panthers spent Monday weighing the future with the present.
In most cases, the future meant this weekend and the week beyond, when the Panthers hope they’ll be able to get fully healthy in time to close the season with a pair of meaningful games against the Tampa Bay Lightning before the 2021 Stanley Cup playoffs begin.
In other cases, it means the years and years beyond. Those injuries and maintenance meant a slew of rookies in the lineup.
There were still playoff implications at stake for Florida against the Dallas Stars, but it was much more important to just make sure everything is in place when the playoff run begins later this month. Thanks to those rookies — and a game-winning, overtime goal by Aleksander Barkov — the Panthers didn’t have to sacrifice either in a 5-4 win in Sunrise.
“The future’s bright here,” defenseman MacKenzie Weegar said.
Rookie left wing Grigori Denisenko handed out two assists. Rookie right wing Owen Tippett did, too. In net, rookie goaltender Spencer Knight picked up his fourth straight win and put Barkov in position to win the game for Florida (35-14-5) on a one-timer with 2:10 left in overtime.
With two games left in the regular season, the Panthers control their own destiny for the No. 2 seed in the Central Division after they beat the Stars (21-17-14) with a rookie-laden lineup.
“We want to keep the playoff mentality like we’ve been doing the last 15, 20 games,” defenseman Gustav Florsling said. “We’ve just got to keep it going. You can’t settle back and take it easy. You’ve just got to keep playing like you want to play in the playoffs.”
Florida remains two points behind the first-place Carolina Hurricanes and two ahead of the third-place Tampa Bay Lightning, although both the division rivals have played two fewer games than the Panthers. Florida, however, closes the regular season with two games against the Lightning on Saturday and next Monday, and would sew up second place by sweeping the series in regulation, no matter what Tampa Bay does in its two other games.
With their win Monday, the Panthers put themselves in as good a position possible to have home-ice advantage for a first-round series in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Right wing Patric Hornqvist missed his fifth straight game with an upper-body injury. Carter Verhaeghe missed his 12th straight with an upper-body injury, too, and fellow forward Sam Bennett also sat out his first game with an upper-body injury. Coach Joel Quenneville was even content to give Sergei Bobrovsky a full day off, starting Knight and letting fellow rookie Philippe Desrosiers dress for the first time as the backup goaltender.
Quenneville is optimistic Hornqvist, Verhaeghe, Bennett and goaltender Chris Driedger will all be able to return this weekend, and he wasn’t going to rush them back Monday with Florida staring at a four-day break in the schedule. His rookies have held their own, anyway, and they did again Monday.
Denisenko — the No. 15 pick in the 2018 NHL Entry Draft and the Panthers’ No. 1 prospect, according to ESPN.com — played his fourth game on the top line next to star center Aleksander Barkov. Tippett — the No. 13 pick in the 2017 NHL Entry Draft and Florida’s No. 4 prospect — played his fourth straight on the second line with All-Star left wing Jonathan Huberdeau. Knight — the No. 15 pick in the 2019 NHL Entry Draft and the Panthers’ No. 3 prospect — made his third career start, all in the last two weeks.
Tippett assisted on the first goal, setting up Huberdeau to put Florida ahead 1-0 just 1:53 into the game. Denisenko and Tippett both assisted on their third, teeing up Weegar for an open shot from the slot to give the Panthers a 3-1 lead. In the second period, Denisenko won a battle behind Dallas’ goal, and fed Forsling for a one-timer to push Florida’s lead back to 4-2 and chase Stars goaltender Anton Khudobin from the game just 45 seconds into the second.
Denisenko now has four points in four games since he rejoined the Panthers on Tuesday and Tippett, who has been with Florida all season, has five points in his last four games.
“They’re playing the right way and they’re getting rewarded for it,” Weegar said. “They’re getting good chances, but when you’re playing well defensively and you’re playing hard, and playing over the puck — that’s what they’re doing.”
Dallas rallied to tie the game 4-4 by scoring two goals in 11 seconds early in the third period, but Knight stopped the final four shots he faced in the final 15:54 of regulation, then picked up his fourth straight win when Barkov scored a power-play game-winner on a one-timer with 2:10 left in overtime, triggering chants of “MVP!” from the 4,702 at the BB&T Center.
While it was the rockiest start of Knight’s career, the goalie still finished with 25 saves on 29 shots and became the youngest player in NHL history to start his career 4-0.
The Stars were fighting for their playoff lives, desperate to chase down the Nashville Predators for the No. 4 seed, and Knight staved them off to guarantee Florida some more meaningful games later in the week.
“It’s a good test, a good learning curve,” Quenneville said. “He settled down after that, found a way to win, so there’s some good things you can pick out of that game going forward.”
This story was originally published May 3, 2021 at 9:45 PM.
