For a long while Tuesday, the Florida Panthers were on the verge of making their newcomers first game in Sunrise an easy one. They were up by three with less than 25 minutes to go, and Andrew Brunette was already experimenting with different lineup combinations.
In less than two minutes, the Panthers’ lead vanished, though, and Florida was caught in another third-period battle, forced to scratch out a 7-4 win on a game-winning goal by Jonathan Huberdeau with 18:41 remaining.
It was another win for these new-look Panthers — they’ve now won 3 of 4 since trade-deadline acquisitions Claude Giroux, Ben Chiarot and Robert Hagg debuted Thursday — but it was also another mixed performance for a group still trying to fully coalesce.
Those three wins have come against some of the worst teams in the league, including two now against the last-place Canadiens, and the loss came against the only good team they’ve faced.
For a long stretch from the end of the first period deep into the second, Florida’s latest performance was also the best for this particular group. The Panthers (45-15-6) scored four straight goals in 11:14 of game time to turn a 1-0 deficit into a 4-1 lead and held Montreal (18-37-11) to just five shots on goal in the second by spending virtually the entire period on offense. It took only 1:42, however, for the Canadiens to tie the game and expose the defense issues Florida still faces, even after the acquisitions of Chiarot and Hagg.
On offense, Florida what it almost always does. The Panthers are the only team in the NHL averaging more than four goals per game and they scored their fourth Tuesday with 12:03 left in the second period. They got contributions from their stars — Huberdeau scored a game-tying, shorthanded goal with 3:43 left in the first perod for Florida’s first goal — and their fourth line. Left wing Ryan Lomberg, a feisty fan favorite, put the Panthers ahead 2-1 on a one-timer with 2:03 left in the first and gave them their 4-1 lead when he scored his second with 12:03 left in the second.
Lomberg punctuated his second goal by pretending to fire an arrow into the crowd at FLA Live Arena and Florida tried to use the big cushion to experiment — and maybe chase a hat trick.
For the next 10 minutes or so, Brunette took every offensive-zone faceoff as an opportunity to stick Lomberg next to Huberdeau and star center Aleksander Barkov, trying to get him a third. The interim coach also split up Barkov and Giroux for the first time, taking a look at how his newest All-Star forward could operate away from Barkov.
Those experiments could only last so long, though. The defense — with its depth as the closest thing Florida has to a weakness — was never good Tuesday, surrendering 13 high-danger chances, even as it only gave up 23 shots on goal. In the second period, the Canadiens only tested star goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky five times and beat him thrice, with two of those coming when the Panthers lost track of a Montreal skater in front of the net.
Although Chiarot had a primary assist in the second period when a heavy point shot created a rebound chance for forward Sam Bennett, the defenseman’s arrival — along with Hagg’s — was intended to bolster the Panthers’ defense and Florida hasn’t yet put together a lockdown effort, albeit with star defenseman Aaron Ekblad sidelined with a right knee injury.
Still, the Panthers’ offense is good enough to survive stretches like the one their defense went through Tuesday. It took only 1:19 in the third period for Huberdeau to score again — at the end of a pretty passing play by Lomberg and fellow forward Sam Bennett — and put Florida ahead for good 5-4.
With 5:17 left, winger Mason Marchment delivered the dagger and the Panthers came back from the brink of disaster to return to the top spot in the Eastern Conference.
