Florida Panthers, Spencer Knight no-show on second night of back-to-back in St. Louis
Spencer Knight’s first NHL start in more than a month began with a blooper. On the St. Louis Blues’ second power play of the game, Torey Krug slammed a shot wide of the net and off the board behind the Florida Panthers’ goal, and caught a break. Knight drifted backward and inadvertently created the perfect bumper for the puck to carom off to wind up in the goal.
It never got much better for the goaltender or his Panthers. On the second night of a back-to-back set out west, Florida got blown out by the Blues, 6-2, on Tuesday in St. Louis.
After beginning a four-game road trip with an impressive shootout win against the Minnesota Wild on Monday, the Panthers (27-24-6) fell behind 2-0 in the first 20:35 and were getting outshot by the Blues (25-25-3) deep into the third period.
Knight, in his first NHL start in more than five weeks, was not good. His team was even worse.
Florida, which leads the league with more than 36 shots per game, had only 18 shots on goal through two periods, and only nine in the first period and four of those came on another futile power-play effort from a unit now mired in a 1-of-23 slump. St. Louis forward Brayden Schenn scored his second goal with 19:25 left in the second period — he also tipped Krug’s shot before it hit off the boards — on an odd-man rush and Blues defenseman Nick Leddy added another with 7:09 left when he turned a takeaway into a breakaway, and 3-0 lead, by outracing defenseman Marc Staal.
The Panthers didn’t score until the final two minutes of the period when Eetu Luostarinen finished off a pinpoint pass from fellow winger Matthew Tkachuk to cut St. Louis’ lead to 3-1.
It was as close as Florida got, though. The Panthers, who lost center Sam Bennett to an unspecified injury late in the second period, stuck Tkachuk and center Aleksander Barkov together for the third period to try to generate some more offense, and even the two All-Stars couldn’t.
Florida did push with six shots in the first nine minutes of the third, only to melt down when it couldn’t convert. In 20 seconds, the Blues executed back-to-back counterattacks to turn the Panthers’ threat into a 5-1 lead with 10:12 to goal.
The Enterprise Center crowd, for a moment nervous about a potential Florida comeback, exploded in celebration of an upset victory less than a week after St. Louis traded All-Star right wing Vladimir Tarasenko to the New York Rangers. Knight finished with just 22 saves on 27 shots in the loss, while Blues goaltender Jordan Binnington stopped 34 of 36.
It was anther missed opportunity for the Panthers, who would have temporarily moved into postseason position with a victory. Instead, they remain a point out of the second wild card with only 25 left to play in the regular season.
