No Turbulence As Panthers Thrash Jets 5-0

SUNRISE, Fla. — Florida wasn’t happy with their past two games against the New Jersey Devils — and they shouldn’t have been.. 

The play wasn’t up to the standards of the defending Stanley Cup Champions, but with the NHL leading Winnipeg Jets coming to town on Saturday, there was no time to dwell on a poor two-game stretch.

On Saturday night, Florida reminded the league who you need to beat before winning the Cup, as they thrashed the Jets 5-0 at Amerant Bank Arena.

“We knew we needed to get this one, we needed to play really well in this game,” Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov said. “I think everyone decided that for themselves. As a group we played the right way.

22-year-old rookie Mackie Samoskevich opened the scoring 14:59 into the first period with his third goal of the season. It would end up being the game winner. 

Barkov (1G, 2A) and Sam Reinhart (3A) led the Panthers in scoring with three points each.

Reinhart, who leads the Panthers in scoring with 28 points in 18 games, extended his active point streak to 10 games — where he had 16 points (8G, 8A) over that span. 

Goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky stopped all 26 shots he faced to pick up his first shutout of the season. 

“The people that are leaders in the room were really good tonight — the biggest minute men on normal nights,” Panthers head coach Paul Maurice said. “Sergei is our biggest minute guy every night that he’s in the net.”

Florida was back to their usual game on Saturday — cleaning up the sloppiness from the past two games as they buried five past Jets goaltender Connor Hellebuyck to hand Winnipeg its third loss of the season. 

“I thought we came out of our fog a little bit here,”  Maurice said. “We were good tonight. 

Two former Jets defensemen —  Dmitry Kulikov and Nate Schmidt — were able to find the back of the net on Saturday for the Panthers.

Schmidt spent the past three seasons in Winnipeg before joining the Panthers this July.

“It felt good [to score] at that time of the game,” said Schmidt, who scored the second goal of the night. “It feels good after our last couple [of games]. Not having as much energy and emotion in our game. To have a little more of that, it just carried throughout our bench.

Evan Rodrigues also scored for the Panthers on Saturday, picking up his fifth goal of the season in the win. Rodrigues has found the back of the net four times in his past seven games. 

“We were ready from puck drop in this one,” Rodrigues said. “Playing a good team will help you do that. It’s nice to bounce back and hopefully we can keep riding this for a little bit. 

The Panthers will head to Winnipeg for the second half of the home-and-home against the Jets on Tuesday. Puck drop is set for 8 ET.