SUNRISE, Fla. — Consider Saturday night the latest submission for Anton Lundell’s Calder Trophy consideration.
The rookie center scored twice in the Florida Panthers’ 6-2 rout of the Detroit Red Wings to close a five-game homestand at FLA Live Arena. The win keeps Florida (37-13-5) in first place in the Atlantic Division. The Red Wings fall to 24-26-6.
Lundell, 20, now has 11 multi-point performances and three multi-goal outing in his first 51 career NHL games. On the season, he has 14 goals and 24 assists while working primarily as Florida’s third-line center and getting time on Florida’s second power-play unit and the penalty kill.
Lundell scored the final goal in both the first and second periods. His wrist shot from the side of the net with 1:58 left in the first period deflected off the Red Wings’ Gustav Lindstrom and into the net for a power-play goal to put Florida up 3-1. His second goal was a snap shot from the bottom of the right faceoff circle on a feed from Frank Vatrano with 3:47 left in the second period.
But it was more than just Lundell making an impact offensively on Saturday. Aleksander Barkov had three assists, Sam Reinhart and MacKenzie Weegar each had two assists, and Sam Bennett had a goal and an assist to round out Florida’s multi-point efforts.
“We want 10!” chants began eight minutes into the second period after Sam Bennett used some nifty stickwork as he approached the net before his point-blank wrist shot went past Thomas Greiss to make the score 4-1.
Lou Bega’s “Mambo No. 5” played about three minutes later when defenseman Lucas Carlsson drove the length of the ice and scored on a wrist shot from the left circle to make it 5-1 before Lundell’s second goal of the game. Alex Nedeljkovic replaced Greiss in Detroit’s net after the Carlsson goal.
Mason Marchment and Anthony Duclair also added first-period goals.
And Sergei Bobrovsky was solid in net for a second consecutive game, stopping 20 of 22 shots that came his way to improve to 28-6-3 on the season.
