Florida Panthers beat Wild, become 4th NHL team to win first 10 home games to start a season
Frank Vatrano was involved in each of the Florida Panthers’ first three goals — scoring twice and chipping in an assist — and Sergei Bobrovsky was dominant in net once again as the Panthers beat the Minnesota Wild 5-4 on Saturday at FLA Live Arena to remain undefeated at home.
Florida (13-2-3) has won all 10 of its home games to start the season. The Panthers are just the fourth team in NHL history to accomplish that feat, joining the 2016-17 Montreal Canadiens, 1925-26 Ottawa Senators and 1963-64 Chicago Blackhawks — the latter of whom have the NHL record with 11 straight wins on home ice to start a season.
The Panthers have won 14 consecutive regular-season games at home dating back to the end of last season.
Vatrano scored both his goals in the second period, sniping a wrist shot from the left circle 8:23 into the period and then pushing in a rebound on an Owen Tippett shot with 5:10 left in the period to push the Panthers’ lead to 3-1.
Vatrano also had the secondary assist on Tippett’s first-period goal, a backhanded shot right in front of the net on a play set up by defenseman Aaron Ekblad.
Carter Verhaeghe scored in the third period with a wrist shot in front of the net and Sam Bennett added an empty-net goal.
Bobrovsky stopped 34 of 38 shots, including a flurry of breakaways late in the second period to help the Panthers hold onto their two-goal advantage. He is now 8-0-2 on the season. All eight wins have been at home.
His shutout bid came to an end when Joel Eriksson Ek scored a power-play goal with 8:14 left in the second period.
Kirill Kaprizov scored a goal for Minnesota (11-6-0) in the third period and the Wild scored two goals in the final 45.1 seconds after playing with an empty net for the final 5:15. Bennett’s empty netter between those two goals became the go-ahead goal.
The Panthers are off the next three days before hosting the Philadelphia Flyers on Wednesday.
This and that
▪ With an assist on Vatrano’s goal, Joe Thornton is now tied with Paul Coffey (1,531) for the 13th-most points in NHL history.
This story was originally published November 20, 2021 at 8:45 PM.
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