Florida Panthers, ‘not looking for style points,’ once again showing how to get gritty wins
The Florida Panthers found themselves in a position they have become far too familiar with entering the third period against the Washington Capitals on Wednesday.
Another close game. Another outing they’ll have to grind to the finish.
And another gutsy win early in the season.
This time, it was a 4-3 overtime victory over the Capitals — Florida’s second consecutive win in overtime — after Evan Rodrigues tied the game early in the third period and Sam Reinhart fired home the game-winner 15 seconds into the do-or-die five-minute overtime period..
“It’s not going to look perfect right now and we don’t have that expectation,” coach Paul Maurice said. “Going into the third, we’re looking to get that game even. We’re not worrying about style points.”
The Panthers (7-4-1) are now 4-0-1 in one-goal games this season and have won two of three games that have gone into overtime.
Overall, 11 of the Panthers’ 12 games played this season have been decided by either one or two goals.
“We’ve done a lot of good things,” Rodrigues said. “We’ve had some great starts in games. We’ve had some comeback wins. We know the ability’s there. ... There’s definitely no quit in this team. No matter what the score is, we’re not gonna roll over.”
That was evident as Florida entered the third period down a goal after a rough second period that saw the Capitals score two goals — one shorthanded and one on a Panthers giveaway that led to a Washington breakaway down the ice — to put Florida down 3-2.
Rodrigues’ game-tying goal came when he tapped home a great feed from defenseman Gustav Forsling, who threaded the puck through traffic 3:33 into the period. It was Rodrigues’ third goal of the season.
“We’ve actually been trying that pretty much the whole year, trying to make that play happen,” Rodrigues said of his play with Forsling. “There’s teams that it’s been open against. He makes a great play. A big goal.”
Reinhart then shut the door on the opening shift of the three-on-three overtime period. Rodrigues sent a long pass to Aleksander Barkov, who then fired his own cross-ice pass off the wall to Reinhart.
Reinhart rushed toward the net and fired a snap shot past Washington goaltender Darcy Kuemper to end it. It was Reinhart’s team-leading ninth goal of the season, and his game-winning tally on Wednesday was the fastest-scored overtime goal in franchise history — one second faster than Aaron Ekblad’s goal 16 seconds into overtime on Feb. 16, 2022, against the Carolina Hurricanes.
“We had our moments, but we were able to stick with it,” Reinhart said. “Those are the type of points that are huge at this time of the year and pay off later. We know how big it is to come out of the gates and start banking some points early in the year.”
This and that
▪ While he gave up three goals on just 28 shots against, Panthers goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky stopped all 10 shots that came his way in the third period to force overtime.
▪ Oliver Ekman-Larsson’s first period goal was his third of the season in just 12 games with the Panthers. Ekman-Larsson scored just two goals total in 54 games last season with the Vancouver Canucks.
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