Panthers end 7-game road losing streak with ugly win in the desert
Sam Bennett summed up the Florida Panthers’ win against the Arizona Coyotes in the only way it needed to be.
“It wasn’t our prettiest game,” the forward said, “to say the least.”
Still, a win was all the Panthers needed Friday to snap a seven-game road losing streak and take sole possession of first place in the NHL, and they got it with a 3-1 victory against the league-worst Coyotes in Glendale, Arizona.
Florida (18-4-4) managed only 23 shots on goal — its second lowest total of the season — and the Coyotes (5-19-2) actually finished with more scoring chances and high-danger chances, but the Panthers scored twice in the span of 10 seconds in the first period to take a 2-0 lead and they never let it go in front of 11,974 at Gila River Arena.
“We got the lead early and then we just played a pretty solid game,” Bennett said. “We weren’t at our sharpest, but we fought through it and ended up getting the win.”
Florida also had its fewest shot attempts of the season with 50 and its fewest scoring chances with 16, and failed to manage at least 10 highdanger chances for only the eighth time all year. The Panthers, instead, won with defense and special teams.
Florida limited Arizona to 23 shots on goal, too — the third fewest it has allowed all season — and killed off four of the Coyotes’ five power plays, including their last three. Goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 22 of the 23 shots he faced, including 8 of 9 on the penalty kill.
The Panthers scored first with 10:55 left in the first period when Patric Hornqvist found the back of the net, then Bennett scored just 10 seconds later to put Florida up 2-0. After Arizona right wing Phil Kessel scored a power play goal with 3:07 left in the first to cut the lead to 2-1, forward Sam Reinhart answered with one of his own to push the lead back to 3-1 at the end of the opening period.
No one scored for the rest of the game and the two combined for just four high-danger shots in the third period while the Coyotes pushed for a desperation comeback.
“It was that kind of game,” Bobrovsky said.
Ultimately, the Panthers were content to just survive against the team with the worst record in the league. Star center Aleksander Barkov sat out with an unspecified injury — he left in the third period of Florida’s overtime loss to the St. Louis Blues on Tuesday — and winger Anthony Duclair missed his seventh straight game with a lower-body injury, leaving the Panthers without two-thirds of their top line.
Both practiced Thursday. Andrew Brunette just opted for caution against the worst team in the league.
“They didn’t feel great today,” the interim coach said, “so we’ll see where they’re at tomorrow and go from there.”
Without the first-line forwards, Florida’s offense suffered, just not enough to actually cost the Panthers. Florida, after all, is now the first team in the NHL to reach 40 points and is tied for the league lead in goal differential, and has even managed an 8-2 record without Barkov in the lineup.
The Panthers exploded for two goals in quick succession early — one from a fourth-line winger and one from the temporary top-line center — and then coasted to the end.
It was an extreme outlier in an otherwise electrifying season for Florida,
and the Panthers know a better game probably lies ahead should Barkov and Duclair return for the finale of this three-game road trip Sunday.
Duclair practiced Saturday and has been deemed a game-time decision. Barkov and winger Maxim Mamin were not on the ice during practice and are considered day-to-day.
For Friday, a win — any sort of win — was good enough.
“I don’t think we had our A-plus game going,” Brunette said, “but we were able to find a way to close it out.”