South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
Torrid Reinhart gets hat trick in rout
DENVER — Sam Reinhart scored three times for his seventh career hat trick, and the surging Florida Panthers beat the Colorado Avalanche 8-4 on Saturday for their seventh straight win.
Reinhart has 10 goals during Florida’s win streak, including three multigoal games. Sergei Bobrovsky made 23 saves for his sixth straight win during the streak.
For the first time on a road trip, the Panthers have won three consecutive games by at least three goals, having walloped the Arizona Coyotes and defending Stanley Cup-champion Vegas Golden Knights by 4-1 each heading into the Colorado game.
Additionally, Florida topped the Montreal Canadiens 4-1 in the game before the road trip started.
Aleksander Barkov had four assists in his 700th NHL game for Florida. Carter Verhaeghe had two goals and an assist, and Matthew Tkachuk had a goal and two assists. Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Kevin Stenlund also scored.
The Panthers led 3-0 and 4-3, but Colorado rallied each time. Jonathan Drouin tied it at 4 with his ninth of the season 3:31 into the third.
Ross Colton then took a double minor for high sticking, Logan O’Connor went off for delay of game 25 seconds later, and Reinhart completed his hat trick when he scored his 28th of the season at 5:59.
Stenlund made it 6-4 with his seventh 8:59 into the final period.
Colorado rallied from multigoal deficits to win in overtime in the previous two games, but it couldn’t pull off the same feat against Florida. Cale Makar and Valeri Nichushkin each had a goal and an assist for the Avalanche. Josh Manson also scored and Nathan MacKinnon had an assist to extend his home point streak to 21 games to start the season.
Colorado goalie Alexandar Georgiev had 12 saves in relief of Ivan Prosvetov.
The Panthers scored three times on four shots against Prosvetov in the first 7:41 of the first period. Verhaeghe scored his 21st just 1:10 into the game, and Reinhart had two goals 4:39 apart.