For two periods Friday, the Florida Panthers’ offense came up empty — a rarity for one of the National Hockey League’s top scoring teams.
They found momentarily life in the third, enough to rally for a win. Sam Reinhart scored the game-tying goal on a power play early in the frame to force overtime before beating the Vancouver Canucks in a shootout for a 2-1 win over at Rogers Arena.
The Panthers are 28-8-5 at the halfway mark of their 2021-2022 season. With 61 points, the Panthers remain atop the NHL standings.
Anton Lundell and Aleksander Barkov scored in the shootout period to give Florida the edge. Rookie goaltender Spencer Knight was solid in net as well, stopping 27 of 28 shots that came his way and two of three during the shootout. The lone goal he gave up came late in the first period, when a Quinn Hughes shot from the point on the power play deflected off a pair of sticks, first Tanner Pearson and then Alex Chiasson, to get past Knight.
The Panthers played from behind for the next 25 minutes, with Canucks goaltender Spencer Martin keeping the high-octane Florida offense off the scoreboard until Reinhart’s power-play goal 1:41 into the third period.
INJURY UPDATES: Center Sam Bennett missed Friday’s game with a lower-body injury and is considered day-to-day. Joe Thornton joined the lineup in Bennett’s absence. Forward Patric Hornqvist also remains day-to-day but skated pregame on Friday.
