Florida Panthers continue offensive onslaught against Detroit Red Wings

The Florida Panthers have never scored this many goals and it feels like they’ve never beaten so many good teams.

Yes, they keep setting them up and knocking them down these days.

Detroit is the latest Eastern Conference challenger to get run over by the Panthers’ as Florida jumped to a three-goal lead and rolled to a 6-3 win over the Red Wings at BB&T Center.

“Hopefully we can keep playing like this,’’ Jaromir Jagr said.

Florida extended its lead on Tampa Bay to seven points atop the Atlantic Division and are now nine points up on the Red Wings.

The Panthers have won five consecutive games in runaway fashion, outscoring the likes of Chicago, Tampa Bay, Washington and the Wings by an impressive 25-8 tally.

The Panthers’ five-plus goals in their past four games is a franchise record.

“We’re clicking, playing great hockey,’’ said Vincent Trocheck, who scored twice and had an assist on Jagr’s goal to make it 5-2.

“There’s just something about the boys in this room. It’s been a ton of fun. We have a great team here.’’

Detroit, which lost in Tampa Bay on Wednesday night, came out flying and put goalie Roberto Luongo to the test early.

Yet as was the case Tuesday in Washington, the Panthers quickly turned the tables and started scoring in bunches.

“Well we didn’t play our best and Louie kept us in the game,’’ Jagr said.

“We gave them too many scoring chances in the first two periods. It looked like they were all over us, but we had the lead.”

Brandon Pirri, benched the past four games, got back in action quickly as he got a stick on Alex Petrovic’s 45-foot shot and got the puck past Jimmy Howard 8:30 in to make it 1-0.

“Getting the early goal really helps,” Pirri said. “When I wasn’t playing, I saw the stat of how good we are when we score first [26-3-3]. It’s insane. We know that’s important. We get the first one and we’re in good shape.”

The goals started pouring in after that, with Sasha Barkov cashing in on Florida’s first power play with a soft top-shelf wrister at 10:41.

Just 25 seconds later, Trocheck broke loose off a Jagr pass, charged in on Howard and beat him to make it 3-0.

Detroit got back into the game late in the first period when Jagr got sent to the box for slashing.

As all four Florida defensemen converged on the puck in the corner, Dylan Larkin — Detroit’s 19-year-old All-Star — was all alone in the slot across from Luongo.

Larkin got a pass and beat Luongo to make it 3-1 with 5.5 seconds left in the period. Early in the second, Larkin made it 3-2 by breaking loose when Aaron Ekblad was interfered with and walked in on Luongo again.

The Panthers gave themselves some breathing room with 3:47 left in the period.

Pirri was back at it, firing an odd-angle shot from the side boards that caught a piece of Derek MacKenzie and went into the back of the net.

After a pair of reviews — one to make sure MacKenzie didn’t kick the puck in, another on an interference challenge by Detroit — MacKenzie’s goal stood and Florida took a 4-2 lead into the second break.

“It wasn’t pretty but it worked out,’’ Pirri said.

The Panthers continued their assault on Howard, who hasn’t won a game for the Wings since Dec. 3, with Jagr getting his first goal since Jan. 10.

Later in the proceedings, after the Red Wings pulled Howard and got their third goal, Trocheck all but ended things with five minutes left by scoring into the empty net.

The Panthers go for their sixth consecutive win Saturday against Pittsburgh before visiting the Red Wings in Detroit on Monday.

Florida now has its third five-game winning streak of the season, all since Thanksgiving.

“We played a pretty good game overall and you’ve got to give Detroit credit,’’ coach Gerard Gallant said. “That’s a good hockey team with a lot of talent and they looked really good tonight.”

▪  The Panthers’ relationship with Kevin Spacey seems to be growing as the actor filmed a video for the team which was shown in the arena Thursday night.

Spacey, the focal point of the team’s ‘Spacey In Space’ sweatshirt awarded to top players after victories, was shown leafing through various team jerseys before coming upon his own with the number 1738 on the back.

The Panthers have been playing rapper Fetty Wap’s song Trap Queen after wins — which references Remy Martin 1738 cognac.

“That was pretty cool,” Pirri said. “You don’t really want to be looking at the Jumbotron during a game, but we were all nudging each other.”

This story was originally published February 4, 2016 at 11:12 PM with the headline "Florida Panthers continue offensive onslaught against Detroit Red Wings."