After blowing 3-0 lead, Panthers come from behind to beat Columbus in OT
Nick Cousins tied the game in the final minute before Carter Verhaeghe scored the overtime winner
It was a frustratingly fun night at Amerant Bank Arena on Monday.
The Florida Panthers jumped out to a big lead over the visiting Columbus Blue Jackets before blowing the lead entirely and having to come from behind in order to pick up two big points.
Florida did just that, scoring a late game-tying goal and then sending the fans home happy after a brief overtime, defeating the Blue Jackets 5-4.
When the game began, it looked like it might be a runaway for the Panthers.
Ryan Lomberg and Gus Forsling scored on Florida’s first two shots on goal, less than a minute apart, to give the Panthers a 2-0 lead 3:09 into the game.
Exactly three minutes after Forsling’s goal, Sasha Barkov scored to make it 3-0 and chase Columbus starting goalie Elvis Merzlikins from the Blue Jackets’ net.
Everything was going Florida’s way. Shots were 21-1 in favor of the Panthers.
Then Columbus woke up.
Two goals in three minutes by the Jackets would cut the Cats lead to 3-2 after 20 minutes, and a power-play goal at the midway point of period two would reset the score altogether.
As one would expect, things tightened up a bit when the teams took the ice for the third.
With 7:30 to go, Columbus turned a defensive zone faceoff into an odd-man rush. Dmitry Kulikov blocked a pass attempt, but the puck bounced off the post and then sat there, waiting for Kirill Marchenko to poke it into the empty goal.
Florida Head Coach Paul Maurice pulled Bobrovsky with 3:21 on the clock, and after a furious couple minutes of Panthers pressure, Nick Cousins picked up a failed Columbus clearing attempt, carried the puck between the circles and beat Spencer Martin blocker-side to tie the game at four.
During the flurry, Florida put up six shots on seven attempts during the 2:24 between Bobrovsky leaving the ice and Cousins scoring the goal.
Overtime would last all of 85 seconds, with the Panthers controlling the puck for almost all of.
The only chance Columbus would have, a failed odd-man rush, would lead directly to the game-winning goal by Florida.
Matthew Tkachuk sent the puck from Florida’s zone to a streaking Anton Lundell, who fired a shot off the pads of Martin that went directly to the stick of a waiting Carter Verhaeghe.
And that would be your game, folks.
Here are some thoughts and observations from Monday’s comeback win:
Some credit to Lomberg for a very skilled goal, intentionally shooting the puck off Merzlikins’ backside and into the net (he confirmed after the game that he did it on purpose).
Florida finished the game with 48 shots on goal (with only one coming on the power play) on 93 shot attempts.
Where that may be misleading, however, is that the Panthers only had seven high-danger scoring chances at 5-on-5 while allowing eight to Columbus, per Natural Stat Trick.
The Panthers came away with edge in faceoffs yet again, though by a slim 52% to 48% margin. Sasha Barkov again led the way for Florida, winning eight of his 12 draws.
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