SUNRISE, Fla. — Sergei Bobrovsky recorded his first shutout of the season and the 38th of his NHL career to lead the Florida Panthers to a 4-0 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Tuesday at FLA Live Arena.
Bobrovsky, starting his fourth consecutive game and playing in his fifth straight with Spencer Knight sidelined by an illness, turned away all 22 shots he faced from Columbus. Over his last 14 periods, dating back to when he entered in the second period against the Winnipeg Jets on Dec. 6, Bobrovsky has stopped 116 of 126 shots he has faced.
The Panthers improve to 14-12-4 and snapped their two-game losing streak. Columbus falls to 10-16-2.
And it came on a night when Florida’s forward depth was tested.
The Panthers was already without Anton Lundell (illness) for a sixth consecutive game and Patric Hornqvist (concussion; long-term injured reserve) for a fifth. Carter Verhaeghe, the team’s leading goal scorer heading into the game with 15, was a scratch, which prompted the team to recall forward Grigori Denisenko from AHL Charlotte ahead of the game. And then they lost Colin White in the first period and Chris Tierney in the second period to injury.
Did that stop the Panthers? Not on Tuesday.
Especially when the Panthers’ top forward line of Matthew Tkachuk, Aleksander Barkov and Sam Reinhart were on the ice.
They opened scoring just over nine minutes into the game on a Brandon Montour slap shot from the top of the left circle.
Tkachuk and Barkov then added goals of their own in the second period to put Florida up 3-0 heading into the final period. Tkachuk scored on a snap shot from the left circle after receiving a drop pass from Reinhart 3:47 into the second period. Barkov padded the lead when he corralled a blocked Gustav Forsling shot just in front of the net and poked it past Blue Jackets goaltender Elvis Merzlikins with 43.3 seconds left in the period.
And, for good measure, Reinhart added an empty-net goal with 1:46 left to play.
