SUNRISE — The Florida Panthers were missing their two most prolific goal-scorers, Brad Marchand and Sam Reinhart, for their Tuesday matchup with the Detroit Red Wings.
Carter Verhaeghe made up the difference.
Despite missing their two top scorers, the Panthers edged out the Red Wings, 4-3, at Amerant Bank Arena. Verhaeghe tied the game with 1:30 left in the third period, and scored the winner with 15 seconds left in the game.
Florida coach Paul Maurice did not announce a specific injury that kept Reinhart, who has a team-leading 28 goals and 31 assists, off the ice for Tuesday’s game. But he implied Reinhart and Marchand were dealing with soft-tissue injuries. Maurice said he hoped Reinhart would return for Thursday night’s home game against Columbus, but Marchand will be out for “weeks.”
“We figured we could get five or six days with him, we can kind of mitigate — we were lucky this year in some ways,” Maurice said at Florida’s morning skate ahead of Tuesday’s game.
“While we suffered a great number of catastrophic injuries, we stayed almost completely out of the soft-tissue stuff. But it’s inevitable. You play nine (games) in 15 (days), you go to Italy, come back and you play six in nine, you’re going to get those. And now we’re starting to deal with them in a significant way. Brad Marchand being the example of that. So we’re trying to get ahead of this with Sam Reinhart.”
Despite the pair of injured scoring threats missing the game, the Panthers got out to an early lead.
Newly acquired forward Vinnie Hinostroza scored the game’s opening goal 9:48 into the first period. The veteran winger spent nine games with Florida in a short stint with the team in 2021, but he did not score in that stretch.
Detroit veteran Patrick Kane evened the game at one goal each 3:54 into the second period as a deflected shot landed right in front of him and behind Florida goalie Daniil Tarasov’s back. Defenseman Justin Faulk gave the Red Wings a lead with a backhanded goal with 7:01 left in the second period.
Florida evened the game early in the third period. Defenseman Niko Mikkola shot from the point, and the shot deflected off Faulk and past Red Wings goalie John Gibson.
However, the tie game was short-lived. Detroit center Marco Kasper scored on a breakaway moments later, pushing the Red Wings ahead 3-2.
Florida appeared destined to lose for the fifth time in six games, but after the Panthers pulled their goalie, Verhaeghe tied the game with 1:30 left in the third period and scored again to clinch the victory with 15 seconds remaining.