Exhausted Panthers return from four-game road trip, fall in overtime to the Canucks

Until their top guys get back, the Florida Panthers are in survival mode.

On Thursday, they survived for 62 minutes and change before the tank final hit E.

The Panthers surrendered an overtime goal to J.T. Miller on a broken play to fall to the Vancouver Canucks 3-2 in a rare cross-continental matchup.

Miller collected a loose puck near center ice in the 3-on-3 format, put a move on Anton Lundell and then beat Sergei Bobrovsky on the stick side to deliver Vancouver its first win of this young season.

Credit the Panthers for squeezing out at least one point for the third straight game (over the course of four days) without stars Aleksander Barkov (lower-body injury) and Matthew Tkachuk (illness).

The Panthers expect Tkachuk back Tuesday against the Minnesota Wild. Barkov’s timeline to return is less clear, but the team is hoping for later this month.

“I don’t think that they had a lot in the tank tonight,” said Panthers coach Paul Maurice, whose team dropped to 2-2-1 on the year. “And you lose a player [fourth-line forward Jonah Gadjovich] right at the start. That’s a bit of a challenge.”

Home and tired after an early four-game road trip, the Panthers were fortunate to scratch out the results they did. And if not for an excellent night by their special teams and 30 saves by Bobrovsky, they probably wouldn’t have.

The Panthers killed off both Vancouver power plays Thursday and got a power-play goal from Lundell, who along with Sam Reinhart has been pretty much the totality of Florida’s offense with Barkov and Tkachuk out.

“I think we fought pretty good today,” said Lundell, who has four goals in six games to start the season. “It wasn’t easy. You had guys leaving and we played with than less guys than we were planning to, but we fought well. I feel like the start wasn’t as good as we wanted, but we got better into the game in the second and third and had some good chances. It was a tight game.”

After a sluggish start befitting a team that just came off a long road trip (Florida) and another in the middle of one (Vancouver), the first period produced its only two goals in a span of 11 seconds — both generated by wraparound opportunities.

The Canucks (1-1-2) struck first, when Teddy Blueger beat Bobrovsky to the pipe on a goal that was called a save in real time, then overturned upon review.

Vancouver’s lead didn’t last long.

The Panthers won the ensuing faceoff, raced down to the Canucks’ end, and got the equalizer on Jesper Boqvist’s putback of Mackie Samoskevich’s disruptive attempt. The goal was Boqvist’s first of the season. The assist was Samoskevich’s first of his career.

The second period ended the same way as it began — tied. The Canucks went ahead six and a half minutes into the third on a crazy-angle Quinn Hughes slapshot from just beyond the left circle that survived a Maurice challenge.

Florida’s bench contended that the faceoff that started the sequence hit the glove of Canucks forward Nils Aman and should have called a hand pass. The replay crew thought otherwise — deciding that the puck was dropped on Aman’s hand and redirection was inadvertent-- so the goal stood.

“A puck that went off the glove; see if I can get a call on it,” Maurice said a bit sheepishly.

It looked as though the Canucks were going to carry that lead into the second intermission, but a late Panthers flurry induced a crosscheck penalty on Filip Hronek, giving Florida its first power play of the night.

The undermanned Panthers attack paid the man advantage opportunity off, as Lundell scored his fourth goal of the season (in just six games) on a wrist shot that beat Kevin Lankinen on the stick side. Reinhart and Carter Verhaeghe and assisted on the power play goal.

After a scoreless third, overtime started chippy, particularly after Jake DeBrusk -- who briefly sent Reinhart to the dressing room in the second period with an open ice hit -- crashed into Bobrovsky on a reckless move to the net. Evan Rodrigues protected his goalie and they were were sent off for roughing.

Mere seconds later, Miller’s game-winner was in the back of the net.

“It is what it is,” Bobrovsky said. “We work so hard for each other and that’s a big point for us.”