"Outworked, outpaced," New York coach Doug Weight said. "They thought the game, they got the puck in and made us turn, and we turned the puck over for two periods. That's pretty much it; we just got outworked. There's no explanation, I guess."
Matheson gave the Panthers a 1-0 lead at 8:57 of the first period when his shot from the right point got between Halak's pads.
Dadonov made it 2-0 when he skated past Scott Mayfield at the left face-off circle and scored on a wraparound at 14:40 of the second period. It was Dadonov's ninth point (four goals, five assists) in his past nine games.
"The deficit is, we're out of the playoffs right now," Weight said. "That should be kicked in at 7 o'clock, not 8:30.
"I'll probably yell and scream and tell them to be ready tomorrow. As a player, you have to know you have to be ready to start the game. It shouldn't be with reckless abandon right now with 30 games left, 30-something games left (31). It should be no need to explain it, no need to beg for it. If you make mistakes, it should be hard mistakes. Puck-watching, turning pucks over, floating, circling for two periods … we haven't done it in a couple of weeks, so I'll take it myself. I don't know. We've got to get 'em going by tomorrow night."
Yandle made it 3-0 at 4:14 of the third period with a slap shot from the left point. The goal came 29 seconds after Sateri extended his pad to deny Casey Cizikas from point-blank range.
