In OT, Montour lifts Florida to third straight win

PANTHERS 4, BLACKHAWKS 3 (OT)

Brandon Montour scored at 2:43 of overtime to give the Florida Panthers a 4-3 win over the visiting Chicago Blackhawks on Friday night.

Eetu Luostarinen had a goal and an assist, Sam Bennett and Sam Reinhart also scored and Matthew Tkachuk had three assists for the Panthers, who have won three straight. Sergei Bobrovsky finished with 21 saves.

Caleb Jones, Cole Guttman and Boris Katchouk scored goals and Jujhar Khaira had two assists for the Blackhawks, who lost for the sixth time in seven games. Petr Mrazek stopped 39 shots.

Florida trailed 2-0 going into the third period before Bennett and Reinhart scored 29 seconds apart to tie the score near the midpoint of the period.

Bennett scored from in front of the net off a pass from Tkachuk off the back boards to get the Panthers on the scoreboard with his 16th at 8:29, and Reinhart reached out and deflected a point shot from Tkachuk on a power play for his 22nd to tie it less than 30 seconds later.

Luostarinen gave the Panthers their first lead with 7:18 remaining as he scored from the high slot after taking a pass from Tkachuk for his 16th.

The Blackhawks pulled Mrazek for an extra skater in the closing minutes, and Guttman converted from in front with 44.3 seconds remaining to tie it with his fourth.

Flyers fire GM Fletcher

With the Philadelphia Flyers in need of a complete franchise overhaul, Chuck Fletcher called the shots at the NHL trade deadline and came up empty.

A day later, the Flyers sent Fletcher to represent the team at a town hall meeting for season ticket holders, where he was about booed off the stage.

His week only got worse. A series of bad contracts, unfortunate injuries, sagging attendance and one of the worst records in the NHL ultimately doomed Fletcher, whom the Flyers fired from his position as general manager and president of hockey operations.

The team promoted franchise great Danny Briere to the interim general manager role, the latest front-office shake-up for an organization that has not won a Stanley Cup since 1975. Briere, who served as special assistant to the GM, is considered a rising star in the front office.

Maybe he will have a concrete plan for a rebuild — which could involve more lean seasons — that Fletcher did not express over his 41/ seasons on the job. The Flyers

2 went 141-145-43 under Fletcher.

The Flyers, who had just one playoff berth in Fletcher’s tenure, play Saturday in Pittsburgh. Philadelphia is 24-30-11 this season under first-year coach John Tortorella and on track to miss the playoffs for the third straight season.