Florida Panthers drop home opener to Minnesota Wild
It turns out five consecutive home openers was one too many for the Florida Panthers.
Unfortunately for the Panthers, the final of those five home openers was theirs.
After opening the season with a four game road trip — each game the first on home ice for their opponents — the Panthers fell 4-1 to the Minnesota Wild on Saturday in their first game of the 2026-27 season at Amerant Bank Arena. It’s Florida’s first regulation loss of the young season, dropping them to 2-1-2 after picking up points in each of those four road games to begin the season. Minnesota improves to 3-1-1.
“Unfortunate result,” center Sam Bennett said, “but we’ll look to be better next time around.”
That starts with not playing from behind basically from the opening shift.
Minnesota went up 1-0 53 seconds into the game on a Matt Boldy snap shot from the point.
Kirill Kaprizov did the rest of the scoring, logging a hat trick to fuel the rest of Minnesota’s offense. He scored once on the power play 6:18 into the first period to push the Wild’s lead to 2-0 and then twice at even strength (the final of those being an empty-net goal), finishing with four points total.
Matthew Tkachuk scored the Panthers’ only goal 2:18 into the second period, picking up his own rebound and firing a short shot past Jesper Wallstedt to cut Florida’s deficit to 2-1. Kaprizov made it 3-1 less than three minutes later and sealed the game on an empty-netter with 1:04 left to play. Wallstedt took care of the rest for the Wild, finishing with 29 saves.
Florida goaltender Jacob Markstrom, who had a .927 save percentage in three starts on the road trip, had 25 saves on Saturday.
“There’s a consistency through that game,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. “We were just slower than they were. We were slow in all parts of our game, but they were also quick in how they moved the puck. We were just sluggish in our game.”
The Panthers’ early season power play woes continued, going 0 for 5 with the man advantage on Saturday to start the campaign 1 for 28 overall.
Forward Eetu Luostarinen left the game midway through the third period after taking a puck to the face and did not return. Maurice said he will be evaluated on Sunday.
Florida quickly heads back on the road, playing a back-to-back against the Buffalo Sabres on Monday (1 p.m., Scripps Sports) and Columbus Blue Jackets on Tuesday (6:15 p.m., Scripps Sports).
This story was originally published October 10, 2026 at 8:48 PM with the headline "Florida Panthers drop home opener to Minnesota Wild."
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