By the time Aleksander Barkov was set up at the right faceoff circle with an extra skater on the ice and the Florida Panthers one goal away from an astonishing comeback Saturday, the captain had long been certain he and his teammates were going to pull off the nearly unthinkable. The New Jersey Devils’ four-goal lead had shrunk to one in less than 15 minutes and the Panthers were on the verge of taking the Devils to overtime.
Barkov waited patiently in one of his sweet spots while the clock ticked toward the final minute. Florida has found a knack for scoring with its goaltender pulled this year and Barkov was ready to give the Panthers another one of those goals. A pass came from MacKenzie Weegar the point and Barkov was all alone. With 1:24 left, he teed up another one-timer and rocketed a game-tying goal by Andrew Hammond. He lifted his hands above his head and waited for his teammates to mob him. He could not help but smile. The Panthers, once down by four with less than 15 minutes to go, were heading to overtime, where they’d finish off their wildest come-from-behind victory of the season for a 7-6 win in Newark, N.J.
“Everyone believed,” Barkov said.
It’s easy to understand why. It was the fourth time this season Florida rallied from at least three down to win — tying an NHL single-season record — and their league-leading ninth comeback of any kind when trailing at the start of the third period. It was the Panthers’ 21st come-from-behind win of the season and they’re all possible because Florida (47-15-6) has the most prolific offense in the league, averaging 4.10 goals per game.
Even for a team affectionately nicknamed the “Comeback Cats,” this rally was one-of-a-kind this season. It was only the 20th time in NHL history a team came back to win after trailing by four goals — maybe not coincidentally, the Panthers also pulled off the last one of these comebacks back in 2019 — and Florida did it in the final 14:26 after getting outshot and out-chanced by the lowly Devils (24-38-6) for two periods.
An all-time-great comeback, after all, needs an awful start and the first-place Panthers delivered one, much to the delight of the 12,284 inside the Prudential Center, who showered the ice with hats after versatile New Jersey forward Yegor Sharangovich completed a hat trick in just 34:44 and celebrated a 6-2 lead at the second intermission.
From the moment Florida left for a quick two-game road trip, almost everything went wrong. The Panthers’ flight out of Fort Lauderdale was delayed, interim coach Andrew Brunette said, and the team got stuck in traffic after they landed, leading to a late-night arrival at their hotel before an early-afternoon start.
“We played the first two periods like we had some excuses,” Brunette said, but Florida decided not to just get through the first period, even with a 1 p.m. game coming up Sunday against the Buffalo Sabres. Brunette yanked Sergei Bobrovsky after the star goaltender gave up six goals on 25 shots in the first two periods and turned to Spencer Knight, even with the rookie goaltender scheduled to start less than 24 hours later against the Sabres (25-33-11) at the KeyBank Center in Buffalo, N.Y.
“There’s a lot of pride in the group,” the coach said.
At the second intermission, there was no yelling from veterans or lectures from coaches, Barkov said. The Panthers decided to stay positive, he said, and tried to emphasize getting back to basics. Even if it couldn’t come back to force overtime or win, Florida wanted to just play well in the third.
The Panthers set a short-term goal, defenseman Brandon Montour said: They wanted to score two goals in the first 10 minutes of the period.
“A two-goal lead in a hockey game,” he said, “that’s scary for anybody.”
For the first five minutes of the period, Florida lived in the Devils’ end and outshot New Jersey, 3-0.
On the Panthers’ bench, left wing Ryan Lomberg was the one player trying to get an otherwise serious group excited, Barkov said
“Cats are coming!” he kept shouting and eventually he was right. Montour scored from the point with 14:24 remaining and then fellow defenseman Gustav Forsling scored 1:29 later.
With 12:57 left, Florida trailed 6-2. The Panthers had their two goals by the 10-minute mark.
“We got two,” Barkov said, “and it was like for sure we were going to come back.”
In the third period, Florida outshot the Devils, 23-5, with a 20-4 edge in scoring chances and an 8-0 advantage in high-danger chances. The Panthers also played much of the final five minutes with an extra skater on the ice as Brunette pulled Knight for the extra attacker with 4:57 left.
It took less than 30 seconds for Barkov to capitalize. From the right faceoff circle, the star center fielded a pass from forward Sam Bennet and whipped a one-timer past Hammond to cut New Jersey’s lead to 6-5. With 2:42 left, Brunette pulled Knight again and Barkov, again from the right faceoff circle, tied the game a little more than a minute later on another one-timer.
Barkov is now tied for fourth in the league with three goals with an empty net and tied for second with 11 goals while trailing by one.
“He has been ‘Mr. Clutch’ and it seems to be growing,” Brunette said. “He’s our leader and our captain, and I love that he’s rising to the big moments because, like I said, we’re going to need him going forward.”
In the 3-on-3 overtime period, Knight stopped one tough shot in the opening minute and Forsling won the game with 3:15 left in the five-minute session.
In a season of comebacks, Florida’s latest stands alone and put the Panthers back in sole possession of first place in the East.
Said Barkov: “Everything clicked at the end.”
