The Florida Panthers entered the second period against the Philadelphia Flyers on Thursday having generated most of the scoring chances through the game’s first 20 minutes.
And then, in the span of a few shifts, it was gone and Florida found itself playing catch up the rest of the night.
The Flyers scored two goals within 72 seconds of each other midway through the second period to take the lead for good as the Panthers fell 4-3 at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia. Florida is now 4-3-2 on the season and dropped both games of this road trip. The Flyers are 5-2-0.
With the game tied 2-2 at the midway point, the Flyers’ Zack MacEwen redirected a Nick Seeler shot from the point past Florida goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky to put Phildelphia up 3-2 with 9:43 left in the frame.
Barely a minute later, Joel Farabee took a feed in front of the net from Kevin Hayes, who corralled his own miss seconds earlier, and sent a wrist shot into the net to extend the Flyers’ lead to 4-2.
Defenseman Brandon Montour scored a power-play goal 30 seconds into the third period, snapping Florida’s 0-for-25 streak on the man advantage, to cut the deficit back to one but the Panthers got no closer despite having a 50-22 edge in shots on goal, including a dozen shot attempts over the final 2:04 (six shots on goal, four shots blocked, two shots wide of the net) after pulling Bobrovsky for a sixth skater.
All three of Florida’s goals came from defensemen, with Gustav Forsling and Josh Mahura scoring in the first period.
Ten for Tkachuk
With his secondary assist on Montour’s power-play goal, All-Star winger Matthew Tkachuk has recorded 10 points (four goals, six assists) through his first eight games with the Panthers.
Only three players in Panthers franchise history have logged their first 10 points faster than Tkachuk: Pavel Bure (six games in 1998-99), Sam Bennett (seven games in 2020-21) and Jonathan Marchessault (seven games in 2016-17).
Up next
The Panthers return home to play the Ottawa Senators on Saturday before starting a four-game West Coast trip that includes games against the Arizona Coyotes on Tuesday, San Jose Sharks on Thursday, Los Angeles Kings on Nov. 5 and Anaheim Ducks on Nov. 6.
