Sergei Bobrovsky made 30 saves to earn his fifth straight victory and Aleksander Barkov had two goals and one assist, leading the Florida Panthers to a 4-2 win over the Chicago Blackhawks on Saturday night in Sunrise, Florida.
Brandon Hagel scored early and Adam Boqvist got one with 92 seconds left for the Blackhawks, who got 31 saves from Kevin Lankinen. But it wasn’t enough for the Blackhawks, who lost for the third time in four games.
The Panthers, who also got goals from Carter Verhaeghe and Frank Vatrano, have won five of their past six games, including three straight. Vatrano has seven goals in nine career games against Chicago.
Anthony Duclair, who had missed six straight games due to a lower-body injury, returned to the lineup and provided two assists. But the assist of the game belonged to Owen Tippett, who served Vatrano with a no-look backhand pass from behind the net.
Tippett, Florida’s first-round pick in 2017 (10th overall), had just two goals and two assists in his first 22 NHL games. But he is on a three-game point streak with two goals and one assist. Besides Duclair, Florida also got defenseman Anton Stralman back from a lower-body injury.
Before the game, the Panthers honoured defenseman Keith Yandle for his 1,000th career game, which he played Sunday on the road. This was Florida’s first home game since then, and Yandle was given a golf cart, a silver hockey stick and a video tribute.
After a scoreless first period in which Chicago outshot Florida 14-6, the Blackhawks made it 1-0 just 28 seconds into the second as Hagel and Dominik Kubalik worked a give-and-go. Kubalik threaded a pass between Stralman’s legs, and Hagel fired on the open right side of the net.
Florida tied the score on Barkov’s first goal with 7:46 gone in the second. After taking a pass from Duclair, Barkov poked in the rebound of his own shot. The Panthers took a 2-1 lead with 9:00 left in the second.
MacKenzie Weegar’s shot was stopped, but the rebound came out all the way to the high slot, where Verhaeghe let loose with a high blast for the goal. Florida made it 3-1 just 79 seconds later.
Tippett got the primary assist with his slick pass to Vatrano, who scored from the doorstep. Barkov’s goal with 9:59 left in the third on a great set-up pass from Duclair iced the game as the Panthers improved to 3-0 against Chicago this year.
Elsewhere, Tampa Bay’s Blake Coleman and Tyler Johnson each notched a goal and an assist in the host Lightning’s 6-3 win over the injury-riddled Nashville Predators on Saturday night. In moving to 10-1-0 on home ice, the Lightning got markers from Mathieu Joseph, Alex Killorn, Brayden Point and Anthony Cirelli.
Erik Cernak and Ondrej Palat each produced two assists. In his eighth straight win, Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 28 of 31 shots to record his NHL-leading 17th win and go to 17-3-1. The victory improved Tampa Bay’s record to 5-0-0 against Nashville this season and 9-1-1 overall in its last 11 games.
Yakov Trenin collected a goal and assist – dishing out the helper on Alexandre Carrier’s first career tally – and Erik Haula scored on the power play for Nashville, which slipped to 1-5-1 in March and 1-2-1 on its seven-game road trip. Pekka Rinne (6-11-1) worked his seventh straight game in goal and allowed five goals on 27 shots. Defenseman Dante Fabbro missed his second of a two-game suspension for elbowing. The blue line was additionally weakened by playing without starters Ryan Ellis, Mark Borowiecki and captain Roman Josi.
The Predators skated with three rookies on the blue line, including 23-year-old Frederic Allard.
In his NHL debut, Allard registered 16:59 of ice time. Before the puck drop in front of a small group of fans, the Lightning raised their 2019-20 Stanley Cup championship banner to the Amalie Arena rafters, celebrating their second title that they won in September over the Dallas Stars in six games.
Johnson made a great individual effort pay off while tangled up with Nashville defenseman Ben Harpur and sliding near Rinne in the opening period. Johnson tapped in Cernak’s pass on an odd-man rush at 6:55 for his sixth goal.
Tampa Bay moved ahead 2-0 at 18:35 when Joseph’s long shot hit the stick of Predators defenseman Mattias Ekholm and beat Rinne – Joseph’s sixth goal overall and third against Nashville this season.
NHL Results
NY Rangers 4 Boston 0; Columbus 4 Dallas 3 ; Calgary 3 Montreal 1 ; Pittsburgh 3 Buffalo 0; Florida 4 Chicago 2; NY Islanders 3 New Jersey 2; Washington 5 Philadelphia 4; Tampa Bay 6 Nashville 3; Winnipeg 5 Toronto 2; Las Vegas 5 St. Louis 1; San Jose 3 Anaheim 1; Vancouver 2 Edmonton 1
Florida Panthers' Aleksander Barkov (right) and Chicago Blackhawks' Adam Boqvist vie for the puck during the NHL game on Saturday. (USA TODAY Sports)
