Third period struggles lead to another Panthers loss against Montreal

The odds of the Florida Panthers facing the Montreal Canadiens in the playoffs prior to the Eastern Conference Finals are near zero. That was about the only good news to emerge from Sunday’s matinee by the swamp for the home team.

Montreal scored two in the third to beat the Panthers Sunday 4-2, snapping a five-game losing streak and moving back into the Eastern Conference’s second final Wild Card spot. The loss dropped the Panthers to third in the Atlantic Division, keeping them a point back of the Toronto Maple Leafs as perhaps the most important week of the defending champs’ regular season begins.

The Panthers never led against a Canadiens team that has now beaten Florida all three times the teams have faced this year by a combined eight goals. Paul Maurice’s crew will try to avoid the season sweep in Montreal Tuesday when they embark on their final multigame road trip of the season.

The upcoming four-game stretch will go a long way in deciding the Atlantic Division champions. The division’s top three teams -- Toronto, Tampa Bay, and Florida -- are separated by one point. It’ll be decided on the ice. The Panthers play the Maple Leafs twice in a week and will close out the regular season in Tampa on April 15.

The difference for between winning the division and not is huge. If the Panthers do, they’ll almost certainly have a first-round date with the fourth-place Ottawa Senators. If they don’t, it’ll be yet another playoff series with the Maple Leafs or Lightning in Round 1.

Florida’s opponents in their upcoming four games away from home -- Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, and Detroit -- are all either currently in the playoff field or fighting for a Wild Card spot.

That means that most every game remaining on Florida’s regular season schedule will have a playoff feel.

Sunday’s back-and-forth affair with the Canadiens (34-30-9) certainly did.

After answering Montreal’s first and second-period goals, Florida (44-26-3) went scoreless in the third to lose for the fourth time in their last seven.

“No excuses. They’ve played better than us all three games,” said Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov, who assisted on both Florida goals Sunday but had a critical defensive lapse late. “... Their lives are on the line. They want to make the playoffs, obviously. We’re trying to do the same thing.”

The Canadiens’ offense Sunday largely came from two players: Lane Hutson (who had three assists) and Nick Suzuki (two assists and the game-winning goal).

Headgear was a must in the opening 20. The teams combined for four high-sticking penalties -- including a crosscheck to A.J. Greer’s jaw by Kaiden Guhle late in the first.

The Canadiens capitalized on one of their two first-person man-advantage chances, beating the league’s ninth-ranked penalty kill until with a slap shot by Patrik Laine that got past Sergei Bobrovsky on the stick-side. The goal was Laine’s 19th of the season -- 16 of which coming on the power play.

Montreal’s lead lasted 73 seconds. Sam Reinhart lit the lamp for the team-leading 36th time on a goal enabled by Montreal sloppiness. Two Canadiens chased after the puck behind Sam Montembeault but Barkov -- appearing in his 800th NHL game -- stole it away from a loose-handling Alexandre Carrier and found Reinhart alone in front of the cage.

The Panthers’ defense tightened up considerably after the first intermission, allowing just four shots on goal in second period after surrendering 10 in the first. But one of those four resulted in a lucky Montreal goal. The Canadiens, again on the power play, went back ahead with some eight and a half minutes left in the period when Juraj Slafkovsky’s cross caromed off of Seth Jones’ skate and past Bobrovsky.

But Jones made up for it five minutes later, when he blasted a 92.7 mph slap shot through Montembeault’s legs and into the back of the net.

Suzuki put Montreal ahead for good two minutes into the third. A scramble for the puck in Florida’s defensive end left him all alone to Bobrovsky’s right with the puck on his blade after a perfect cross-ice pass from Hutson. Suzuki didn’t miss -- scoring for the 23rd time this season. The assist was Hutson’s 54th in 73 games.

How was Suzuki so open?

Barkov pointed the finger of blame at himself.

“It’s 2-2 going into the third and then obviously my guy scores the third goal,” he said. “I was supposed to be there so I am definitely not happy about that.”

Montembeault and the Canadiens’ defense did the rest, blanking the Panthers in the third period and putting the game on ice with an empty-netter by Brendan Gallagher in the final two minutes of regulation.

“We let a lot of offense die in that game,” Maurice said. “... We play in a lot of tight games. That’s the style of hockey that we play. It was even so it’s going to be [decided] by one break. We had a little bit of a missed assignment on the game-winner.”

This story was originally published March 30, 2025 at 4:55 PM.