Florida Panthers fall to Devils at home after giving up three third-period goals
The Florida Panthers gave up three unanswered goals in the third period to fall 4-2 to the New Jersey Devils on Wednesday at FLA Live Arena.
Florida is now 15-15-4 on the season and has lost five of its past seven. It is the first time the Panthers are at a .500 points percentage or worse 34 games or further into a season since the 2018-19 campaign when the Panthers were 24-24-8 after 56 games. They finished that season 36-32-14.
New Jersey improves to 22-9-2.
And the demise came in a similar fashion to most of Florida’s losses: The Panthers had a 47-35 edge in scoring chances, including a 16-9 advantage during a third period in which they got outscored 3-0.
Eric Staal and Eetu Luostarinen scored goals for Florida, each briefly giving the Panthers the lead.
For Staal, it was his third of the season, second in as many games and put Florida up 1-0 4:45 into the game before Jesper Bratt tied the game with his first of two goals 2:16 later with a power play goal.
Luostarinen put Florida up 2-1 with 3:48 left in the second period by scoring his first career power-play goal on a spinning feed from Sam Bennett. It was Luostarinen’s eighth goal overall on the season.
That lead lasted about six-and-a-half minutes before Bratt scored his second goal early in the third and then Yegor Sharangovich scored the go-ahead goal with a re-direct in front of the net about seven-and-a-half minutes after that. Tomas Tatar added an empty-net goal with 39.1 seconds left to cap scoring.
Panthers goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky saved 29 of 32 shots he faced. Devils goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood turned aside 33 of 35 shots.
The Panthers next travel to face the New York Islanders on Friday in their final game before the league’s Christmas break.
This story was originally published December 21, 2022 at 9:38 PM.
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