Panthers rest stars but still get shutout win over Ottawa and NHL Presidents’ Trophy
The Florida Panthers will finish with the National Hockey League’s top regular-season record this season and have home-ice advantage for the entirety of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
The Panthers secured the NHL’s Presidents’ Trophy for the first time in franchise history on Thursday. Florida’s 4-0 shutout win against the Ottawa Senators coupled with the Colorado Avalanche’s 5-4 shootout loss to the Nashville Predators clinched the Panthers’ spot atop the league’s standings heading into the final day of the regular season.
The Panthers, at 58-17-6, are now just the seventh team in NHL history to win at least 58 games in a season.
And the Panthers did their part on Thursday despite most of their top players not being in the lineup — although it might have been hard to tell that based on the final result.
“I think the depth of our team has been on display every night all year,” interim coach Andrew Brunette said, “and tonight was no different.”
Case in point: Brunette sat most of his top players — forwards Aleksander Barkov, Jonathan Huberdeau, Claude Giroux and Anton Lundell; defensemen MacKenzie Weegar, Gustav Forsling and Radko Gudas; and goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky among them — on Thursday with Florida’s spot as the top seed in the Eastern Conference already locked up. He very well could do the same Friday against the Montreal Canadiens to wrap up the regular season.
The goal at this point is to make sure the team is as close to full strength as possible when they begin the Stanley Cup Playoffs next week. Florida will face either the Washington Capitals or Pittsburgh Penguins in the first round.
The Panthers also brought up forwards Cole Schwindt and Aleksi Heponiemi as well as defenseman Matt Kiersted from the Charlotte Checkers, their American Hockey League affiliate, to round out the roster. Schwindt and Heponiemi played on a line with 24-year NHL veteran Joe Thornton, while Kiersted was primarily paired with Robert Hagg.
Even with that, Florida still had its share of talent on the ice Thursday. The Panthers’ top line of Sam Reinhart, Sam Bennett and Anthony Duclair entered the game with a combined 90 goals.
Reinhart opened scoring and gave Florida a one-goal lead that stood through the first two periods before the Panthers added three more goals in the third period — one by Bennett and two by Carter Verhaeghe.
It all supported Spencer Knight’s second shutout of the season. The 21-year-old goaltender turned aside all 27 shots he faced from the Senators (32-42-7).
“I think it’s a tribute to our group that regardless, whoever plays, we compete,” Brunette said. “We play hard. We do the right things. We play the right way. We bought into what we’re trying to do. It’s fun. I think it was as much fun for the guys that sat out to watch other guys have success — and that’s been them all year. They don’t care who gets the attention or whoever gets the goals. I think everybody’s happy for each other and that’s — I’ve said this a million times here — it’s what makes this group really special. I’ve never been around a group that is more happy for whoever gets any kind of credit. They’re all excited for him. It was on showcase again.”
It started six minutes into regulation. Reinhart took a feed in front of the net from Bennett and fired an up-close wrist shot past Ottawa’s Filip Gustavsson to give the Panthers the early 1-0 edge.
That score held for the next 35 minutes until Bennett got control of a rebound of a Duclair shot attempt and flicked the puck into the net 1:11 into the third period. Reinhart got the secondary assist on the play, giving him 17 points over the past 12 games.
Verhaeghe made it a 3-0 lead 21 seconds later after taking a pass from Eetu Luostarinen on an odd-man rush across the slot and buried his own wrist shot for the three-goal lead. He closed scoring with his second goal of the game and 24th of the season with 6:52 left in regulation.
This story was originally published April 28, 2022 at 9:24 PM.
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