Olympians lead Florida Panthers to much-needed win over Boston Bruins
The Florida Panthers spent a few minutes prior to their home game Wednesday recognizing members of the organization who will be heading to Italy next week for the 2026 Winter Olympics. Ten players — not including the injured Aleksander Barkov and Seth Jones — along with president of hockey operations Bill Zito, head equipment manager Teddy Richards and three assistant coaches took the ice holding the flags of the six countries they’ll represent in Milan in the first Olympic Games featuring NHL players since 2014.
And when the game started, several of those players contributed heavily in the Panthers’ much-needed 5-4 shootout win over the Boston Bruins at Amerant Bank Arena — a victory that keeps their relatively slim hopes of making the Stanley Cup playoffs alive.
All four Panthers goals came by Olympians — Finns Eetu Luostarinen and Anton Lundell, Latvian Uvis Balinskis and American Matthew Tkachuk. Lundell and Canadian Brad Marchand scored in the shootout.
All five assists came by Olympians as well, with Canadian Sam Reinhart, Balinskis and Tkachuk each having one and Lundell chipping in two.
Sergei Bobrovsky, who almost assuredly would have been an Olympian had Russia not been banned from the 2026 games, made 25 saves — giving up two goals apiece in the first and third periods — and stopped three of four shots in the shootout to secure the victory, which snapped a four-game losing streak and improved the Panthers to 29-24-3 (61 points) and to within eight points of the Bruins (32-20-5, 69 points) for the Eastern Conference’s second wild-card spot.
“Tonight felt great,” Lundell said. “It was a really hard game.”
After a Sam Bennett goal 84 seconds into the game was overturned because the play was offside, Florida opened scoring 4:22 into the first when Luostarinen picked up a loose puck in the offensive zone and fired a wrist shot from the slot past Joonas Korpisalo. It was his seventh goal of the season.
Boston’s Michael Eyssimont then scored twice in a span of about five-and-a-half minutes to put the Bruins ahead.
He tied the game at 7:18 of the first after Marchand and Balinskis collided at Florida’s blue line, leaving him one-on-one with Bobrovsky. His second goal came on a breakaway 12:43 into the period after exiting the penalty box, getting a stretch pass from Marat Khusnutdinov and showing extreme patience to tap the puck past a stretched out Bobrovsky.
The Panthers then used three special-teams goals in the second period to turn a one-goal deficit into a two-goal lead.
Balinskis and Tkachuk scored power play goals about two minutes apart early in the second period to give Florida a 3-2 lead. Balinskis’ goal came 30 seconds into the frame on a snap shot from the left circle for his second goal on the man advantage in as many games. Tkachuk’s goal came 2:47 into the period on a wrist shot from up close.
And then Lundell scored shorthanded on a feed from Sam Reinhart with 1:27 left in the frame.
Lundell, who missed the past three games with an upper-body injury, logged his second three-point game of the season and first since Nov. 13 against the Washington Capitals.
Boston’s Mark Kastelic cut Florida’s lead to 4-3 7:52 into the third period when he deflected a Charlie McAvoy shot into the net and then tied the game with 9:30 left in regulation on a Casey Mittelstadt power-play goal to force overtime.
Florida had some looks during the five-minute three-on-three period but both sides came up empty to send the game to a shootout where the Panthers ultimately prevailed when they needed to.
“We have some really good leadership,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said, “and we’ve got really good men that have been through it this stretch.”
Injury update
Forward Sandis Vilmanis left midway through the first period with an upper-body injury and did not return.
Vilmanis, who is set to represent Latvia in the Olympics along with Balinskis, played just 2:35 on Wednesday. His most notable play in the game was an illegal check to the head on Boston’s McAvoy at center ice. McAvoy had to be helped off the ice but returned in the second period.
Vilmanis has four points (two goals, two assists) in 12 games.
Additionally, defenseman Tobias Bjornfot did not play in the third period.
Maurice said Vilmanis likely will be fine but was less optimistic about Bjornfot, adding that three players who were active Wednesday likely will not play Thursday in Florida’s game at the Tampa Bay Lightning (7:30 p.m., ESPN+/Hulu) to close out their schedule ahead of the Olympic break.
This story was originally published February 4, 2026 at 10:52 PM.
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