Sam Reinhart had two goals and Sergei Bobrovsky needed just 20 saves for his 40th career shutout as the visiting Florida Panthers rolled to a 5-0 victory over the Ottawa Senators on Monday night.
Sam Bennett had a goal with an assist, Carter Verhaeghe and Eetu Luostarinen scored late and Aleksander Barkov assisted on each of the season-high three-game power-play goals for Florida, which avoided a third straight loss. Reinhart, who leads the team with 15 goals and 27 points, had just one point in the previous four games.
Meanwhile, Bobrovsky was not challenged often, but made a stellar, extended pad save on Josh Norris early in the third. Then he stopped breakaways by Tim Stutzle and Brady Tkachuk later in the period to preserve his second shutout of the season. Bobrovsky also helped the Panthers kill all six of Ottawa’s power plays.
A chippy contest, the game featured 167 minutes in penalties. With 7:22 remaining in regulation and Florida ahead 4-0, each player on the ice for both sides received 10-minute misconduct penalties. Ottawa’s Zack MacEwen received a five-minute match penalty early in the third period for an elbow to the head.
After managing one goal in the previous two games, Florida opened the scoring just 1:28 into the contest. On the power play, Reinhart converted an up-close one-timer off Matthew Tkachuk’s pass.
Florida also killed a four-minute Ottawa power play — off a high-sticking double-minor by Reinhart — in which the host was held to one shot on goal.
After Ottawa netminder Joonas Korpisalo (33 saves) made a pair of phenomenal saves on Aaron Ekblad and Bennett, the Panthers made it 2-0 via Reinhart’s brilliant power-play wraparound 5:59 into the second. The Senators challenged the goal for offside, lost and were assessed a delay-of-game penalty.
That led to another power play for the Panthers, who converted again when Bennett went backhand to beat Korpisalo a little more than a minute later.
Ottawa has dropped two straight after winning three in a row.
–Field Level Media
