Hot Panthers back in thick of playoff race
LOS ANGELES — Rober t o Luongo has been through this before.
So, too, have his teammates.
Yeah, the Florida Panthers are back in the thick of a playoff race.
By virtue of beating the host Los Angeles Kings 3-2 early Sunday morning at S t a pl e s C e nt e r, t he Panthers took over third place in the Atlantic Division and the playoff spot that comes with it.
The win over the Kings — Florida’s first in L.A. since 2002 — marked the Panthers’ fourth consecutive victory and seventh in their past eight games.
The Panthers left California with a three-game sweep of the Sharks, Ducks and Kings for the first time in franchise history with the five-game road trip ending tonight in St. Louis.
Florida opened this trip with a rousing 7-4 win over Nashville.
“We’re getting results and we’re seeing that we’re a pretty good team when we’re playing,” said Luongo, who wore the team’s barbershop cape, which goes to the MVP following wins. “We just want to keep ’er going right now. We have a lot of work to do,” Luongo said. “We know we’re in a battle right now and every game is going to be key, going to feel like a do-or-die game for our club.
“But it should be a fun couple of months here; we should enjoy the ride and take it one game at a time.”
The Panthers took third in the division by virtue of having the same number of points as the Boston Bruins in one fewer game played.
The Bruins came out of their week’s vacation Sunday at San Jose as Boston kicked off a four-game trip of its own with three California games and a finale in Dallas.
“When you can do what we’ve done on this streak — and there’s still a long Panthers at Blues 8 p.m., FSN, NHL
way to go — it’s something to reflect on and something to build your game on,” said GM and interim head coach Tom Rowe.
“T h i s i s a g r o u p t h a t fought the confidence bug a little when we were going through the rough times. Now, they’re taking advantage, feeling good and playing some good hockey.”
In Saturday’s late game, the Panthers once again took the initial lead as Jonathan Huberdeau opened the scoring with 4:55 left in the first.
Florida made it 2-0 when J u s s i J o k i n e n s c o r e d h i s fourth goal in the past five games off a Reilly Smith pass, yet it seemed like that only woke up the Kings — who handed Florida its only loss during this run with a 6-3 thrashing in Sunrise earlier this month.
Los Angeles, which has now lost four of five with the only win coming against Florida, jumped all over the Panthers in the second. The Kings out-shot the Panthers 15-5 in the second and tied t he s c o re o f f go a l s f ro m Dwight King and Tanner Pearson. The Panthers survived the onslaught, however, and came out swinging in the third.
“We told them if we came into the game knowing we’d go into the third 2-2 with a chance to win it, we would have taken that any day of the week,” Rowe said. “There was definitely some motivation. The playoff race in the east is so darned close, there’s a lot to play for.”
The Panthers got the goal they would need early in the third as Aaron Ekblad got the puck to Jaromir Jagr who found Sasha Barkov who buried his chance and made it 3-2 just 15 seconds into the period.
Luongo came up strong for the Panthers as he made 33 saves — including 10 in the third — to pick up the win.