Panthers Remain First in East With Win Over Predators

SUNRISE — Following a two week road trip to New York and Finland, the Florida Panthers were back in Sunrise Thursday night, where they comfortably defeated the Nashville Predators 6-2.

Evan Rodrigues had the game winner early in the second period, while Carter Verhaeghe had a game-high two goals and three points. 

Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov also had three assists in the game.

The Panthers remain atop the Eastern Conference with a 10-3-1 record while Sergei Bobrovsky improved to 7-2-1 on the year in the win.

Verhaeghe lights the lamp twice

Carter Verhaeghe is used to filling the net with pucks — he had 118 goals in his first four seasons with the Panthers. 

He’s a sniper, which is why the Panthers gave him an eight-year contract extension last month, but this season has been a bit of a slow start for Verhaeghe’s standards. He had just two goals in the first 13 games of the season.

On Thursday night, Verhaeghe looked more like himself, getting two goals and an assist in his first multi-goal performance of the season.

“It feels good just going out there and playing, sometimes it goes and sometimes it doesn’t, ” Verhaeghe said. “I got a couple tonight, so it feels good. But we are just focused on playing a good team effort and winning games.”

It took Verhaeghe nine games before he scored his first goal of the season, which came on Florida’s last road trip. Since then he has four goals in his last six games. 

Reinhart sits atop NHL goal scoring leaderboard

Sam Reinhart entered Thursday’s contest in a three-way tie with Nikita Kucherov and Nico Hischier for most goals in the NHL.

3:33 into the first period, Reinhart beat Scott Wedgewood to temporarily take sole possession of most goals in the NHL with 11. 

Nikita Kucherov also scored on Thursday in Tampa’s game against Philadelphia. 

Reinhart hasn’t shown any signs of regression after he put up 57 goals last season — which was second in the NHL behind Auston Matthews’ 69. 

“There’s no weakness in his game,” Aleksander Barkov said. “He’s playing the game the right way. Every single second on the ice he’s doing it right, he’s not cheating the game.”

The 29-year-old is currently on pace for 64 goals in an 82 game season. 

Rodrigues extends goal-streak to three games

Last week when the Panthers played in Finland, Evan Rodrigues scored in both games as the Panthers swept the Dallas Stars in Tampere. 

While the Panthers returned to Sunrise, Rodrigues clearly didn’t leave his scoring touch in Finland. 

1:56 into the second, Rodrigues beat Wedgewood up high for his fourth goal of the season — putting the Panthers up 3-0 and extending his goal streak to three games. 

“He loved playing in Finland,” Barkov said of Rodrigues. “Maybe that got him more confidence. I don’t see him stopping.” 

In 80 regular season games last season, Rodrigues did not have goals in consecutive games all season — however he did have a two-game goal streak in the Stanley Cup Final. 

Panthers notes

• Uvis Balinskis had the first multi-point game of his NHL career
• Tomas Nosek scored his first goal as a Panthers and the first power play goal of his 10-year NHL career
• Matthew Tkachuk had a goal and an assist