The Florida Panthers started strong, but a disastrous second period cost them in a 5-2 loss to the New York Islanders at UBS Arena.
Matthew Tkachuk opened the scoring with a breakaway goal 8:06 into the first. Seth Jones sent a cherry-picking Tkachuk in alone on Ilya Sorokin and he pulled the keeper to the ice before roofing the puck on the backhand.
Tkachuk’s second goal at 14:03 was prettier than his first as scored between his legs after being gifted the puck by Ondřej Palát after Carter Verhaeghe blooped the puck into traffic in the Islanders zone. Jaw-dropper!
Unfortunately, Florida positives would be few and far between the rest of the way.
A seemingly harmless shot from Marc Gatcomb trickled past Daniil Tarasov 5:28 into the second to cut the Cats’ lead in half. The assists went to Adam Pelech and Scott Mayfield.
After taking a long bounce pass off the boards from rookie sensation Matthew Schaefer, Calum Ritchie sprung Brayden Schenn up the middle and he gave Tarasov the blues with a snap-shot from the between the circles at 12:09.
Schaefer handed-off to Simon Holmstrom up high and he sent a wrister through Tarasov with Bo Horvat providing an opaque screen 2:43 later. Scheen was credited with the second helper on the goal that came with Gustav Forsling off for tripping.
Mackie Samoskevich earned a breakaway chance to tie the game, but Pelech got back and distrupted him just enough to negate the scoring opportunity. The snake-bitten Samoskevich would later ring a shot off the cross bar.
The Islanders continued to apply pressure and went up by two when Anders Lee set up Emil Heineman, who blasted a shot past Tarasov with three minutes left in the frame. Schenn again collected the secondary assist, giving him his first three-point game with his new team.
Casey Cizikas capped the five-goal barrage less than a minute later, from Carson Soucy and Gatcomb, to put the game out of reach.
To their credit, the Panthers came out and played hard in the third, but they couldn’t get any closer, finishing the tilt with just 21 shots on Sorokin and falling to 27th in the league standings. They’ll go again this afternoon at Madison Square Garden.
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