Florida suffered a defeat on the road for the first time since Dec. 18 in Calgary
Well, all good things must come to an end.
A last minute goal by Sebastian Aho gave the Florida Panthers their first road loss in over two months, 1-0 on Thursday night to the Carolina Hurricanes.
The Panthers appeared to leave the struggles of Tuesday’s overtime win against Ottawa behind them, jumping all over Carolina during the game’s opening frame.
Florida ended up outshooting the host Hurricanes 16-8 but were unable to get a puck past Canes goaltender Pyotr Kochetkov.
It would be an uphill climb for the Panthers from that point on, with both Matthew Tkachuk and Gus Forsling suffering apparent injuries during the opening frame.
Neither came out with the rest of the Cats for the second period and would eventually be ruled out for the remainder of the game.
Things were a bit more even from that point on, with both goaltenders shining for their respective squads deep into the contest.
For a brief moment it looked like Florida broke through with just over three minutes to go, but Eetu Luostarinen’s pretty one-handed deflection goal was called off after a review for offside.
In a matter of moments the game went from a possible exhilarating Florida win to a frustrating defeat.
Aaron Ekblad hit the post behind Kochetkov with just under a minute to go, and then about 30 seconds later in the same sequence, Sebastian Aho collected his own shot block and sent a wrist shot over Bobrovsky’s glove with 18.9 to go.
Just like that, the winning streaks are all over.
Both teams came together at the end, as they did several times throughout the night, showing there is no love lost between the two Eastern Conference contenders.
On to the Captials.
Here are some thoughts and observations from Thursday’s battle with the Hurricanes:
Florida went 0-for-3 on the power play, including a key four-minute double minor earluy in the third period.
The Panthers did kill off the only Carolina power play, which came a bit later during the third.
Bobrovsky was solid in goal for Florida, finishing with 28 saves and stopping all five high danger shots by the Hurricanes, according to Natural Stat Trick.
The star of the game was Kochetkov. He made 44 saves on the night, including 13 high danger shots by Florida.
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