Florida heads home after picking up three points in a pair of extremely tough road buildings

The Florida Panthers entered their weekend back-to-back looking to break out of a slump.

Not only had the Panthers dropped four straight and five of seven, but the way they’d been playing was very uncharacteristic of how Florida has looked for much of the season.

Despite playing shorthanded, missing Sasha Barkov, Gus Forsling and Aaron Ekblad for both games, the Panthers wrapped up their challenging pair of road games with three points after taking Sunday’s matchup in Philadelphia by a 4-1 final score.

When the puck initially dropped at the Wells Fargo Center, there was a bit of a feeling out process going on. By the time the game hit the 10-minute mark, each team had only registered one shot on goal.

Florida’s second shot came at the 10:34 mark. It came as the Panthers entered the Flyers zone on a 3-on-3 rush.

Brandon Montour carried the puck over the blue line and found Anton Lundell, who quickly sent a cross-ice pass to Sam Reinhart.

Reinhart walked into the right circle and fired a quick snapshot that found its way through Flyers goaltender Felix Sandstrom, giving the Panthers a 1-0 lead.

Florida’s penalty kill came up huge during the opening frame, killing off all three Flyers penalties while holding them to just two shots on goal.

A large scrum after the final buzzer sounded at the end of the first period led to multiple penalties and ultimately, a Panthers power play.

Vladimir Tarasenko scored to give Florida a 2-0 lead, but it was the play by Montour in the neutral zone – knocking the puck out of midair and simultaneously denying the Flyers a breakaway and sending the Panthers into Philly’s zone with numbers – that made everything happen.

Carter Verhaeghe scored a third period goal for the second straight night, this time giving Florida a 3-0 lead.

The Flyers did end up spoiling Anthony Stolarz’s shutout bid, pulling the goalie while on the power play with about 7:30 to go and scoring on a nice passing play finished off by Bobby Brink at the side of the net.

Reinhart scored again into an empty net, his 50th goal of the season. Only one player in Panthers history, Pavel Bure, has achieved that feat.

A successful weekend in two tough buildings? I’d say so.

On to Boston.

Here are some thoughts and observations from Sunday’s matchup with Philly:

Florida scored the first two goals in both games of their weekend back-to-back.

Reinhart has now scored 11 goals over his past 12 games.

Stolarz was spectacular for Florida, finishing with 32 saves while going a perfect 12-for-12 on the Flyers' high danger shots. 

The Panthers’ PK was outstanding, finishing 4-for-5, with the only blemish coming on a 6-on-4 when Philly pulled their goalie. The Flyers finished with only five power play shots.

Montour logged a trio of assists on Sunday and four over the back-to-back. 

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