“LET’S GO HOME BABY!”
The red-hot Florida Panthers came back from a three-goal deficit to defeat the Ottawa Senators, 4-3 in a shootout. With their win, the Panthers improve to 44-14-6, and remain first place in the Eastern Conference.
First Period
The Panthers would start out the game dominating on shots, however, each of them were stopped by Anton Forsberg.
The Senators would draw first blood at 7:54 when Alex Formenton broke out into the zone and bounced past Sergei Bobrovsky. Ottawa would extend their lead to 2-0 at 15:26 in the period when Artem Zub scored off of a Josh Norris rebound.
Second Period:
The Senators would continue building the lead to 3-0 when Tyler Ennis intercepted a MacKenzie Weegar pass, and then passed it to Dylan Gambrell, who shot it past Sergei Bobrovsky’s five hole.
The Panthers would draw a penalty at 8:11 when Connor Brown hooked Robert Hagg. 44 seconds later, the Panthers would get on the board when Claude Giroux would set up Anthony Duclair across the ice for a one-timer that went past Forsberg.
62 seconds later, a very controversial call that would seem to flip this game in the Panthers favor was called. It looked like Anton Forsberg made an impressive behind-the-back save along the post on Patric Hornqvist, but after a lengthy review it was ruled the puck was in his glove and popped out past the goal line, which made it 3-2.
Third Period:
The third period slowed down and was more of a goaltending show between Sergei Bobrovsky, who started to find his game, and Anton Forsberg.
Forsberg, despite stopping 46 shots, allowed the game-tying goal by Aleksander Barkov with 2:16 remaining in regulation.
Overtime:
There were multiple chances by both teams, including a Senators power play at the end of 3-on-3 overtime, but no pucks crossed the crease.
Shootout:
Aleksander Barkov would do his typical shootout magic by shooting a puck top-shelf into the net, giving the Panthers a goal in the shootout. It had Panthers color commentator Randy Moller saying, “That’s filthier than a county fair dumpster!” Sergei Bobrovsky ended up stopping all three shots faced in the shootout, securing Florida’s win on the road.
Up Next:
The Panthers go over on the other side of Ontario to play against the Toronto Maple Leafs.