Florida Panthers’ road win streak ends at 11 with loss to Carolina Hurricanes
The Florida Panthers came one win away from tying NHL history.
It wasn’t meant to be.
In a game that had the feel of a Stanley Cup playoff game and featured the top two defenses in the NHL, the Panthers fell 1-0 to the Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday at PNC Arena.
Sebastian Aho scored the lone goal with 18.9 seconds on a wrist shot that beat Florida goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky.
That was all the Hurricanes (34-17-5) needed as Carolina goaltender Pyotr Kochetkov stopped all 44 shots he faced in his first career start against the Panthers (37-16-4).
Bobrovsky stopped the first 28 shots that came his way before giving up the goal in the final seconds of regulation.
“It came down to 19 seconds,” Panthers defenseman Aaron Ekblad said. “That’s a playoff game, there’s no doubt about it. That’s two teams colliding that play almost the exact same way. There’s almost no room out there for anybody.”
The loss is the Panthers’ first on the road since Dec. 18 against the Calgary Flames. Florida had won 11 consecutive road games prior to Thursday, one shy of matching the NHL record initially set by the Detroit Red Wings (March 1-April 15, 2006) and then matched by the Minnesota Wild (Feb. 18-April 9, 2015).
Down two key players
The Panthers played the majority of their game Thursday without a pair of top players in defenseman Gustav Forsling and winger Matthew Tkachuk.
Forsling’s last shift came with about seven minutes left in the first period before leaving for the dressing room. Tkachuk last took the ice with about two minutes left in the first period after taking a hit in the corner from Carolina’s Andrei Svechnikov.
No specifics were given regarding their injuries beyond coach Paul Maurice saying postgame that both are day-to-day and will be evaluated again when the team returns to South Florida.
Forsling has been arguably the Panthers’ best defenseman this season. He leads the team in plus-minus (plus-39) while also logging eight goals and 19 assists while playing on Florida’s top defense pairing.
With Forsling out, Brandon Montour played a season-high 28:45 while Ekblad was on the ice for 23:20.
Tkachuk has been one of the NHL’s best players since the calendar flipped to 2024. In 20 games since Jan. 1 entering Thursday, Tkachuk has posted a league-leading 38 points, while his 23 assists are tied for second and 15 goals fourth in that span.
Without Tkachuk, Maurice had to get creative with his forward lines. Anton Lundell spent time on the left wing of Aleksander Barkov’s line with Sam Reinhart. Carter Verhaeghe moved to the second line with center Sam Bennett and winger Nick Cousins. Kevin Stenlund centered Eetu Luostarinen and Evan Rodrigues. The three centers rotated in picking up extra shifts to center wingers Jonah Gadjovich and Ryan Lomberg.
This story was originally published February 22, 2024 at 9:36 PM.
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