Stolarz makes 34 saves, Panthers hold off Ducks

ANAHEIM -- Anthony Stolarz made 34 saves, and the Florida Panthers held off the Anaheim Ducks for a 2-1 win at Honda Center on Friday.

Stolarz, who was a backup for Anaheim from 2019-2023, signed a one-year contract with Florida on July 1.

"He was, I think, our best player, for sure," Florida forward Anton Lundell said. "He did some big saves and kept us in the game. We needed some big saves in some key moments, and we got them from him. Luckily, we were able to get the win with two goals."

Eetu Luostarinen and Oliver Ekman-Larsson scored for the Panthers (11-5-1), who came off a 2-1 loss to the Los Angeles Kings on Thursday and have won six of seven (6-1-0). Lundell had two assists.

Florida forward Aleksander Barkov left 57 seconds into the third period and did not return after knee-to-knee contact with Ducks rookie defenseman Jackson LaCombe, who was assessed a minor tripping penalty.

“We’ve got to get him back and get him looked at, and then we’ll see from there,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said of Barkov, who entered the game tied for second on the team with 17 points (six goals, 11 assists).

Frank Vatrano scored, and John Gibson made 33 saves for Anaheim (9-8-0), which has lost two straight.

"This team's funny, like we go in spurts," Ducks coach Greg Cronin said. "There's a fearlessness and a drive to our game when we have that in our minds, and you saw that in the third period."

Luostarinen gave Florida a 1-0 lead at 14:50 of the first period. He passed the puck to Lundell below the goal line on the opposite side of the net, and Gibson slid over to protect the right post. Lundell passed it back to Luostarinen, who shot the puck into the net before Gibson could slide back over.

Ekman-Larsson made it 2-0 at 18:06 of the first after LaCombe turned the puck over in the Anaheim zone following a hit along the boards by Luostarinen.

Nick Cousins passed to Lundell below the goal line, and he made a diagonal pass through the slot to Ekman-Larsson, who stopped the puck in the left circle before banking it off the far post.

"They're a really good team, really good defensively, so they keep everything to the outside," Cronin said.

Vatrano cut it to 2-1 at 7:38 of the third period, scoring off a rebound on the power play.

"It felt like the ice was shifting our way in the third," Ducks forward Jakob Silfverberg said. "We kept having scoring chance after scoring chance.”

Anaheim, which has six third-period comeback wins this season, thought it tied the score on a wraparound by Silfverberg at 11:11, but a video review determined that the puck did not cross the goal line.

"I saw the same thing that 15, 16,000 people saw and I have to respect what they saw in Toronto, I guess," Cronin said. "I'm looking at the monitor and there's multiple angles. I look at [the Panthers] bench and it looked like they were getting ready to play a 2-2 game."

Stolarz made his best saves on back-to-back attempts by Ryan Strome after he exited the penalty box early in the second period. Stolarz stopped Strome's breakaway at 2:06 and turned away his follow-up try a second later.

Stolarz also made two saves against Adam Henrique on short-handed breakaways midway through the second period.

"We weren't very good, let's be honest, the first couple periods, we were lucky it was only 2-0," Cronin said. "We had two breakaways that were off our penalty kill and if our penalty hadn't been so good, it wouldn't have gotten to the controversial ending."

Two of the top four defensemen for Florida, Brandon Montour and Aaron Ekblad, made their season debuts following offseason shoulder surgeries.

"I couldn't imagine how it would have been solo," Montour said of rehabbing with Ekblad. "We have a great relationship, and it was good to have somebody beside me that had the exact same injury and coming back the same game and kind of experiencing the last six months together."

NOTES: Florida posted its 1,000th victory in franchise history. ... Gibson played his 441st game with the Ducks, tying Guy Herbert for the second-most games by a goalie in team history. ... Anaheim defenseman Radko Gudas, who signed a three-year contract with the Ducks on July 1 after playing for the Panthers the past three seasons, had two shots on goal in 23:03 of ice time in his first game against his former team. … Panthers forward Sam Reinhart’s six-game point streak ended (five goals, eight assists).