Panthers blitz Oilers on road

Florida scores 3 goals in just over 2 minutes to open the 2nd period

EDMONTON, ALBERTA The Florida Panthers needed a period to get up to full speed against the Edmonton Oilers.

Brian Boyle and Jayce Hawryluk each had a goal and an assist and the Panthers scored three goals in just over two minutes to open the second period in a 6-2 victory Sunday.

Aaron Ekblad, Noel Acciari, Evgenii Dadonov and Frank Vatrano also scored for Florida. The Panthers improved to 5-2-4, earning at least a point in eight straight games.

The Panthers are 3-1-3 on the road, and against stiff opposition. Their seven foes average 1.52 points per home game (not including those against Florida). That extrapolates to a 62-point pace for 41 home games on average for those seven teams.

“It was a heck of a game in a lot of ways,” Panthers coach Joel Quenneville said. “I thought we had good offensive zone time. I thought we made a lot of nice plays, good individual plays on the goals. Certainly [Sergei Bobrovsky] made some key big saves early in the game.”

Bobrovsky made 24 stops to improve to 4-2-3.

“I thought our guys were ready they were full of energy and it was a solid, good effort, all 60 minutes,” Bobrovsky said. “I would say we were solid when they scored the second goal, we were still playing with each other, we were still supporting each other. We just played our game.”

James Neal and Leon Draisaitl scored for the Oilers. They have lost three of four to fall to 8-3-1.

“They played the way we would like to play,” Oilers defenseman Oscar Klefbom. “They were stronger, they won a lot of loose pucks. They didn’t give up much, and we didn’t create much. Their goaltender played well, and they found a way to score on us.

“We’ve got home.”

The Panthers opened the scoring 31 seconds into the second period when Aleksander Barkov dropped it back to Ekblad, who beat goalie Mike Smith to the glove side for his first goal of the season.

Florida extended the lead just over a minute later when a defensive miscue led to Boyle waiting for Smith to commit before sending the puck into the net. The Panthers scored their third goal on three shots within a span of 2:05 when another turnover led to Acciari’s goal.

Smith was replaced in net by Mikko Koskinen after Acciari’s goal. Florida made it 4-0 just 49 seconds into the third period on a nice wraparound by Dadonov.

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