Panthers Defeat Flyers in Shootout, Extend Win Streak To Seven

SUNRISE — The Florida Panthers extended their win streak to seven games on Saturday night, defeating the Philadelphia Flyers 4-3 in a shootout as they remain atop the NHL’s Eastern Conference. 

Evan Rodrigues had the shootout winner, while also extending his point streak to four games with two assists on the night. 

I think he’s confident,” Panthers head coach Paul Maurice said of Rodrigues. “The true tell of confidence is actually the plays you don’t try to make. Tonight, there wasn’t a lot there so he picked his right spots and he was really good.”

Sergei Bobrovsky picked up his eighth win of the season and the Panthers improved to 11-3-1 on the year.

Saturday night’s contest was a back and forth one from the jump, as neither team held more than a one goal lead all game. 

The Flyers opened the scoring early off of Joel Farabee’s third goal of the season, 4:57 into the first. 

After trailing 1-0 in the first period, the Panthers bounced back in the second with a pair of unanswered goals from defensemen Nate Schmidt and Dmitry Kulikov. 

“When we get into tough situations this team doesn’t panic,” Schmidt said. “ You get that sense from this group that has a lot of confidence in what they do – we do – every night.”

After Flyers forward Anthony Richard leveled the game with seven minutes to go in the second, Sam Bennett continued his phenomenal start to the season, scoring his ninth goal of the year less than two minutes later.

Through the first 15 games of the season, Bennett is scoring at a point-per-game rate. He has nine goals and 15 points over that span. 

“I’m feeling good, just rolling over from last year,” Bennett said. “All our lines are playing really well right now… every line is playing well, playing with a lot of confidence and that’s what we need.

With his goal on Saturday, Bennett also hit a personal milestone of 300 career NHL points.

“It’s great [but] I don’t look at that too much,” Bennett said when asked about the achievement. “Any time you can get another milestone I guess it’s great.”

In the third, the Flyers scored the lone goal of the period after Garnet Hathaway banked an intended pass off Panthers defenseman Uvis Balinskis into Bobrovsky’s net.

Regulation wasn’t enough for either side to find a winner, so overtime was due in Sunrise.

In the extra frame, both teams had quality looks to pick up the extra point, however Philadelphia appeared to have the more dangerous chances.

The Flyers had numerous breakaway opportunities in the overtime and they should have put the game to bed, but they kept running into a wired in Sergei Bobrovsky, who stopped six shots in the extra frame. 

“That was a fun challenge,” Bobrovsky said postgame. “Lots of breakaways. I definitely think it was fun for fans too. We had some great scoring chances. It’s just fun all around.”

In the shootout, Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov started things off by scoring a highlight reel, one-handed goal.

Former Panther Owen Tippett evened things up for the Flyers, before Evan Rodrigues got the Panthers back in front with the go ahead shootout goal.

Bobrovsky made his final stop of the night on Morgan Frost in the fifth round of the shootout, as the Panthers won their second straight game at home. 

“Bobby gets better the bigger the game, the higher the stakes, the more tense it is and today he showed that,” Rodrigues said. “When he makes more saves and he gets more action, that’s when he is even better and takes his game to another level. He showed it tonight.”

Panthers Notes

• Niko Mikkola picked up an assist to extend his point streak to four games — a new career-long
• Matthew Tkachuk, 26, appeared in his 600th career NHL game
• Sergei Bobrovsky picked up career win 404, moving him ahead of Hall of Famer Grant Fuhr for 12th all-time