Carter Verhaeghe, Rudolfs Balcers come up big as Panthers beat Flyers in home opener
Rudolfs Balcers was left all alone in front of the net as he received the feed from Sam Bennett. The Florida Panthers winger made his way to the crease, gliding in front of Philadelphia Flyers goaltender Felix Sandstrom before backhanding the puck into the net and celebrating with his teammates.
“I wasn’t sure it went in right away,” Balcers said, “but it was nice to see it cross the line.”
Balcers’ first goal with the Panthers put Florida ahead for good in a 4-3 win over the Flyers on Wednesday at FLA Live Arena in the team’s home opener. Florida improves to 3-1-0 on the season. Philadelphia falls to 3-1-0.
“Pretty solid, pretty straight-through game,” coach Paul Maurice said.
Carter Verhaeghe scored the Panthers’ first two goals about two-and-a-half minutes apart from each other early in the first period. His first goal, a snap shot from the right circle 6:06 into the game, came on a feed from Aleksander Barkov from behind the net. He pushed Florida’s lead to 2-0 at the 8:38 mark of the period after taking a breakout pass from defenseman Gustav Forsling, skating unopposed into the Flyers’ zone and ripping a wrist shot into the net.
“We came out and played the way we wanted to play,” Verhaeghe said. “We got a couple early ones and it was nice to get on top right away.”
Defenseman Josh Mahura added a goal of his own midway through the third period that turned out to be the game-winning goal with the Flyers cutting Florida’s lead to one in the final seconds on a Travis Konecny goal.
The Flyers scored their first two goals goals on a Nick Seeler backhander in front of the net with 3:27 left in the first period and a James van Riemsdyk wrist shot in front of a crowded net on the power play with 4:44 left in the second period.
Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 31 of 34 shots he faced, including the first 18 that came his way in the third period before Konecny found the back of the net with three seconds left in regulation.
“We gave up the two that you don’t want to give up when you’ve got a lead like that, but you know your goalie is going to have to make at least one good save in the third period with a one-goal lead — maybe two — and he did that,” Maurice said. “He looked real calm almost when there was more action around the net. He sat there at the start. It was a quiet start for him and really didn’t have to work to much in the first, so he build through it for sure. He got real solid in the third.”
This and that
▪ Barkov, Sam Bennett and Matthew Tkachuk all had two-assist nights on Wednesday.
▪ Tkachuk has recorded at least one point in each of his first four games with the Panthers. He is just the fifth player in franchise history to start his tenure with the club with a point streak of that length, joining Ray Whitney (seven games in the 1997-98 season), Pavel Bure (six games in 1998-99 season), Verhaeghe (four games in 2021-22 season) and Kris Versteeg (four games in 2011-12 season).
▪ Verhaeghe is the first Panthers player to record multiple goals in consecutive home openers.
This story was originally published October 19, 2022 at 10:16 PM.
.JPG)