Panthers’ fourth line ties game twice, but Florida falls to Utah Mammoth
Paul Maurice has shown a knack over his Florida Panthers tenure of knowing when to switch things up when he needs a spark from his team. Sometimes, all it takes is one midgame switch to see things shift in their favor.
That happened in the second period Tuesday.
With his team down a goal after a period against the Utah Mammoth, Maurice swapped Mackie Samoskevich and Sandis Vilmanis, moving Samoskevich to a line with Sam Bennett and Matthew Tkachuk while Vilmanis moved down to Florida’s fourth line with Cole Schwindt and A.J. Greer.
Vilmanis and Schwindt responded by each scoring goals in that middle frame, each time erasing a deficit.
But Florida couldn’t even the score a third time as Utah took lead for good on a Mikhail Sergachev goal with 8:55 left to play on its way to beating the Panthers 4-3 at Amerant Bank Arena.
The Panthers fall to 28-21-3 and had their three-game win streak snapped. Utah improves to 28-21-4.
Sergachev’s goal came as he re-directed a Sean Durzi shot from the point past Sergei Bobrovsky. It was the defenseman’s eighth goal of the season.
Nick Schmaltz added a shorthanded goal on a breakaway with 4:14 left in the first and Durzi scored 3:46 into the second period for Utah.
Florida answered the first two goals. Vilmanis, playing in his ninth NHL game, scored his first career NHL goal 2:52 into the second period with a snap shot from the slot that beat former Panthers goaltender Vitek Vanecek.
Schwindt then responded to Durzi’s goal with a wrist shot through traffic 9:55 into the second period to tie the game at 2-2.
But Florida couldn’t find a way to tie the game a third time despite outshooting Utah 28-20 and having a 61-38 edge in shot attempts. Utah sealed the game on a Barrett Hayton empty-netter with 55.7 seconds left, although Carter Verhaeghe got Florida back within a goal with 14.6 seconds left.
Florida had one final rush attempt after that with a chance to tie the game and managed to fire off two final shot attempts. Vanecek turned aside a Brad Marchand wrist shot and Sergachev blocked a Sam Reinhart attempt to secure the Mammoth’s win.
“We put a couple pucks close to the net and it was kind of close,” Verhaeghe said. “It’s unfortunate that we were in that situation.”
Added Maurice: “I thought we were late around the net early in the game. I didn’t think we were there enough, but we got back to being at the net. I thought we had some pucks and we could have gotten there a little bit quicker maybe. There were some rebounds to be had that we just couldn’t get a handle on.”
Vanecek stopped 25 of 28 shots he faced to improve to 3-9-2 on the season. Bobrovsky stopped 16 of 19 shots faced.
The Panthers now head to St. Louis for a one-game trip against the Blues on Thursday (8 p.m., Scripps Sports) before their final three-game homestand ahead of the Olympic break against the Winnipeg Jets on Saturday (4 p.m., Scripps Sports), Buffalo Sabres on Monday (7 p.m., Scripps Sports) and Boston Bruins on Feb. 4 (7 p.m., TNT).
Injury update
Center Anton Lundell did not play in the third period due to an upper-body injury. Maurice said he anticipates Lundell will be fine to play Thursday at St. Louis.
Defenseman Aaron Ekblad was also shaken up in the third period but said postgame that he is fine.
This story was originally published January 27, 2026 at 9:40 PM.
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