SUNRISE, Fla. – A thousand reasons to smile.
On the same night defenseman Dmitry Kulikov was honored for skating in his 1,000th NHL game, the Florida Panthers shut down the New York Islanders in a 6-3 win at Amerant Bank Arena on Sunday.
Their third straight win, the Panthers remain atop the Atlantic Division at 32-19-3.
“I feel like our game has been right the last couple of weeks,” said Kulikov. “Sometimes we didn’t get the result that we wanted, but we’ve been playing good.”
The swag got turned on early.
Scoring in his second straight game, Carter Verhaeghe beat rookie goaltender Jakub Skarek with a backhand 39 seconds into the game to put the Panthers up 1-0.