The Florida Panthers almost dug themselves out of a three-goal, but couldn’t quite complete the comeback and fell to the Edmonton Oilers by a 6-3 count at Amerant Bank Arena.

The Oilers scored four times in the first 36:45 of game play, chasing Sergei Bobrovsky when Vasily Podkolzin took a pass from Leon Draisaitl and snapped a shot off the 72 on the goaltender’s right shoulder into the top of the net.

Jack Roslovic opened the scoring 25 seconds into the game beating Bobrovsky with a very routine shot from the right boards after Evan Bouchard, who had the secondary helper on Podkolzin’s goal, made a nice play to hold the puck in the offensive zone.

Roslovic bagged his second of the night at 7:06, again from Bouchard, after a Florida turnover and Mattias Ekholm got the third Edmonton goal at 13:58, scoring from the middle of slot after Darnell Nurse’s initial shot hit both Adam Henrique and Jeff Petry.

Anton Lundell got Florida on the board at 6:30, 36 seconds before Roslovic’s second, jamming the puck in after taking a pass from Mackie Samoskevich after he tracked down Seth Jones clear and rounded the net to feed Baby Barkov on the door step.

With Daniil Tarasov between the pipes, the Panthers halved the deficit at 10:04 of the second when Samoskevich scored his first goal since October 21 in Boston. Sam Bennett passed back to Uvis Balinksis at the right point and he faked a shot and crossed to the waiting Samsokevich, who smacked a one-timer from the left circle past Stuart Skinner two seconds after David Tomasek left the penalty box.

A hooking call on Brett Kulak put the Cats right back on the power play and this time they cashed in in under two minutes. After taking a pass from Sam Reinhart, Lundell came off the boards and fired off a shot from that right dot that Skinner stopped. The rebound bounced into the slot and Reinhart backhanded it out of the air at 13:30 to extend his point streak to six games, with the second helper going to Brad Marchand.

The Panthers would test Skinner 17 more times to no avail and Connor McDavid, from Ekholm, and Matt Savoie, assists to Mattias Janmark and Ekholm, would tack on empty-netters late in the third to complete the scoring.

A sloppy start and an off night from Bobrovsky (13 saves on 17 shots) conspired to keep the Cats from its first three-game winning streak since the start of the season. Personally, I thought Paul Maurice should’ve pulled Bobrovsky after Roslovic’s second goal. If that was too quick, then the change to Tarasov should’ve been made after Ekholm’s marker. The Panthers played well after switching keepers, but came up a goal short to finish the homestand with a 3-2 record. They’ll hit the road for a one-off in Nashville on Monday before returning home for six more games in Sunrise.

The Five Hole

Second Star Mackie Samoskevich produced his third multi-point performance of the season while playing in his 100th career NHL game. His first period assist ended a seven-game pointless streak and his second period marker halted a 12-game goalless drought.

Red-hot Sam Reinhart has racked up ten goals and five assists over Florida’s last 13 games. Reinhart has the lit the lamp in nine of those contests. He is now one behind Brad Marchand for the team lead in goals.

Daniil Tarasov stopped all 12 of the shots he faced in relief. Tarasov lowered his GAA to 2.34 and upped his save percentage to .910. He needs to play more…

Anton Lundell, who had a game-high five shots, is up to 18 points in 21 games after finishing the game with a goal and an assist. Lundell had a career-high 45 points last season. He is on pace to smash that.

After a slow start to season offensively, Sam Bennett has a goal and two assists in the last three games. Bennett registered three shots on goal and was credited with three hits.

Stat Card