RECAP: Panthers 8, Avalanche 4

DENVER – The Cats just keep on rolling.

Led by a hat trick from Sam Reinhart, the Florida Panthers pushed their win streak to seven games with an 8-4 win over the Colorado Avalanche at Ball Arena on Saturday.

At 25-12-2, the Panthers are currently tied with Boston atop the Atlantic Division.

“It was a great effort,” Florida defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson said. “Up 3-0 in the first, then they come back and tie it up. It’s hard to kind of get going again, but we did a good job. In the third, the power play came up big for us. The penalty kill has been good all year, and today it was again. Overall, we’re just showing that we can win in different ways. I don’t know if we love this way, but once in a while it’s good.”

During the winning streak, Reinhart has scored 10 goals.

“When you can get on a roll like this, it takes some pressure off some other times throughout the season when it’s not going well,” Reinhart said of the win streak. “I think we were kind of struggling a bit, both mentally and physically through the grind, kind of getting back from those two long road trips in December. It was nice to get to regroup over Christmas.”

Before the puck even dropped, the Panthers got a big boost.

After leaving Thursday’s win at Vegas with injuries, captain Aleksander Barkov (upper body) and Evan Rodrigues (lower body) both took the ice for warmup and were cleared to play in the game.

Despite having to wear a face shield, Barkov dished out four assists.

“He’s been fast all year, and the helmet didn’t slow him down,” said Panthers head coach Paul Maurice, who joked that Barkov would have to keep wearing the lucky shield.

Racing out to an early lead, the Panthers broke the ice just 1:10 into the first period when Matthew Tkachuk, drawing the attention of both Avalanche defenseman, set up Carter Verhaeghe for a slick snipe from the right circle to make it 1-0.

Less than two minutes later, Reinhart, who was named to the 2024 NHL All-Star Game on Thursday, tipped a point shot from Gustav Forsling past Ivan Prosvetov to double Florida’s lead to 2-0 at 3:02 with his team-leading 26^th goal of the campaign.

Not done there, the red-hot Reinhart upped his goal total to 27 soon after when – after some great work in the defensive zone by linemates Barkov and Rodrigues – he was set free on a breakaway and lifted a shot past Prosvetov to make it 3-0 at 7:41.

Florida’s three goals came on three straight shots.

Owning one of the top penalty kills in the NHL for more than a month, the Panthers managed to keep their early lead intact when the Avalanche earned a four-minute power play. Killing off all four minutes, Florida surrendered just three shots on goal.

But during the first intermission, the Avalanche regrouped.

Just 21 seconds into the second period, Cale Makar got Colorado on the board with a snipe from the right circle to cut Florida’s lead to 3-1. Just 31 seconds later, Josh Manson scored after some chaos near the crease to make it 3-2 at 0:52.

Quickly clawing their way back to even, the Avalanche tied things up when Valeri Nichushkin tipped a shot past Bobrovsky on the power play to make it 3-3 at 4:35.

Colorado’s three goals came within a span of just 4:14.

“All those great teams, especially when they play at home, are going to have their moments, their momentums,” Barkov said. “You just have to learn how to manage them. Obviously, they’re going to be in your face and controlling the game and putting a lot of pucks at the net, so you just have to stay calm and do your thing.”

That’s just what they did.

Pushing back for the Panthers, Oliver Ekman-Larsson took a pass from Barkov after some strong forechecking and fired a shot through traffic from just inside the blue line that sailed past Prosvetov’s glove and into the cage to make it 4-3 at 8:50.

Following that goal, Alexander Georgiev replaced Prosvetov in Colorado’s net.

“Huge,” Maurice said of Ekman-Larsson’s momentum-shifting goal. “Even more so than the 5-on-3 goal because that stopped the bleeding. That’s the most important one.”

After sustaining an upper-body injury in the second period, Sam Bennett did not return for the third for the Panthers.

"As of right now, we’re not very concerned about it," Maurice said of the injury.

Getting the game all squared up once again, Jonathan Drouin chased down a loose puck and beat Bobrovsky on a breakaway to make it 4-4 at 3:31.

On a 5-on-3 advantage, the Panthers swiped the lead back thanks to some pretty passing on the power play. Capping off the seventh hat trick of his career, Reinhart finished off a tic-tac-toe play with a one-timer from the slot to make it 5-4 at 5:59.

Reinhart leads the NHL with 13 power-play goals.

And despite the Panthers being on the road, more than a few hats hit the ice after the red light went off.

“I know it’s a hat trick, but we’ve seen that hockey from him all year,” Maurice said.

Adding an insurance goal after a crucial faceoff win in the offensive zone, Ryan Lomberg tapped the puck over to Kevin Stenlund, who then wired a backhand shot into the far corner of the cage to give the Panthers a 6-4 advantage at 8:59.

Icing the game away and sending the home fans to the exits in droves, Verhaeghe and Tkachuk scored empty-netters late in regulation to make it 8-4.

Over his last three games, Tkachuk has posted eight points (three goals, five assists).

“That was a weird one, no doubt about it, to come out that quickly and get a lead like that and then have it disappear just as fast,” Maurice said. “I don’t know if there was a tremendous amount of fabulous offense, they beat us three times from high, but they’ve got good shooters and we’ve got good shooters. Then it settled in a bit and turned into a bit of a grinder. I like the fact that our bench didn’t get too high or too low.”

THEY SAID IT

“Coming in here, we know how good of a team they are and how good they play at home. Another big win for us. It’s all about the hard work. Second period we didn’t like, but it’s OK. We concentrated on the third and got the job done.” – Aleksander Barkov

“We’re pretty deep down the lineup. We have a lot of guys that can score and make nice plays. It’s hard work. Everybody’s working hard. When we do that, we’re going to create a lot of chances and look good out there.” – Oliver Ekman-Larsso

“Kind of an up and down game. It’s nice we were able to stick with it and come out on top.” – Sam Reinhart

CATS STATS

- Gustav Forsling has earned a point in six of his last seven games.

- Since Christmas, Sam Reinhart leads the NHL with eight goals.

- Carter Verhaeghe’s five-game goal streak is the longest of his career.

- Aleksander Barkov has tallied at least three assists in three of his last six games.

- Evan Rodrigues recorded his fifth multi-assist game of the campaign.

- Sergei Bobrovsky has picked up the win in each of his last six starts.

- The Panthers have won seven straight games for the seventh time in their history.

- Florida’s eight goals are the most the team has scored in a game this season.

WHAT’S NEXT?

Why stop now?

Going for their eighth straight win, the Panthers will wrap up their four-game road trip with a matchup against the St. Louis Blues at Enterprise Center on Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET.