Florida wraps up three-game road trip with 1-1-1 record

The Florida Panthers had an opportunity to return to Sunrise with a very successful three-game road trip in the bank.

They just needed to finish the trip off with a win in Chicago.

Unfortunately for the Panthers, it wouldn’t take long after the puck dropped on Saturday night that it would become clear Florida would not be flying home on a high note.

Chicago was all over the Panthers from the start, jumping out to a 4-0 lead en route to a convincing 5-3 victory in front of 18,666 fans at United Center.

The Panthers had done a good job in recent games of getting off to strong starts, but that was not the case Saturday.

Already having fired off the first five shots of the game, Chicago went on the power play at the 5:43 mark on an interference call against Kevin Stenlund.

Nick Foligno pounced on a blocked shot and popped the goal past Anthony Stolarz to put the home team up 1-0.

Less than three minutes later, a neutral zone turnover by Matthew Tkachuk led to a clean zone entry for Chicago, and a trailing Nikita Zaitsev came in the zone unmolested and beat Stolarz to make it 2-0.

Just over three minutes after that, Taylor Hall came flying down the left side of the ice and slid the puck under Stolarz. In what felt like the blink of an eye, the score had ballooned to 3-0 in favor of the Blackhawks. Shots on goal were 10-2.

Florida started the second period much better than they did the first, but a quick rush up the ice by rookie Connor Bedard later, the Panthers found themselves in a 4-0 hole.

The Comeback Cats attempted to make an appearance, but it was one of those too little, too late situations.

Goals for Florida would come from Oliver Ekman-Larsson on power play, and Matthew Tkachuk doing his thing at the net.

Credit goes to the Panthers for digging in after a rough first period and responding with 40 minutes of extremely good hockey. 

Here are some thoughts and observations from Saturday’s matchup in Chi-town:

Nick Cousins had a quietly effective game. His was busy on both ends of the ice and finished with four shots on goal. Advanced metrics were quite favorable, and his overall game certainly passed the eye test on a night Florida needed it.

Similarly, Sam Reinhart was incredibly effective but has nothing but two shots on goal and a minus-2 to show for it. Those two shots came on nine attempts, and his advanced metrics were off the charts.

Tkachuk’s goal was the 500th point of his NHL career. He’s up to nine points in Florida’s first 10 games.

Chicago finished the game with 27 blocked shots, led by Jarred Tinordi’s eight.

Overall the Panthers put 40 shots on Chicago goalie Petr Mrazek. Those 40 shots came off a whopping 82 attempts. 

LATEST THN FLORIDA STORIES

Paul Maurice wouldn't watch Penguins-Blackhawks game that helped Florida clinch playoff spot

Panthers look to keep rolling as road trip ends against Connor Bedard, Blackhawks

THN Archives: Roberto Luongo steps in as Editor In Chief of The Hockey News

Three Takeaways: Interesting moves with bottom six, PK turning a corner

Sergei Bobrovsky makes 22 saves, Panthers shut down Red Wings 2-0