Losses don’t get much more painful — literally — than the one the Florida Panthers suffered on Wednesday.
The host Panthers blew a two-goal lead in their 4-2 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers, and the game’s key exchange left a mark.
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Flyers forward Tyson Foerster’s right-place-right-time goal gave Philadelphia its first lead of the night with just 46 seconds left in regulation. He had the space to uncork a screaming wrist shot past Sergei Bobrovsky because his attempt that immediately preceded it struck Aaron Ekblad low and sent the Panthers defenseman to the ice. Philadelphia center Sean Courturier then scored 19 seconds later with his seventh goal of the season.
That ensured a second straight home loss for the two-time defending Stanley Cup champs. It was the Flyers’ league-leading 10th comeback win of the season.
“Ekblad made a big block and unfortunately the puck came right back to him,” Panthers forward Carter Verhaeghe said. “… It sucks losing that way.”
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Particularly given how the game’s first 25 minutes unfolded.
Period 1 was all Panthers (12-10-1), as Florida outshot Philadelphia 15-7 with an 10-2 edge in high-danger chances.
And yet, the Panthers led just 1-0 thanks to a gutty 20 minutes by Dan Vladar and some missed opportunities.
Most notably? Evan Rodrigues had a point-blank look in front of the goal but couldn’t control the puck. (He had another Grade A chance later in the game that also was wasted.)
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“We had a bunch of chances and couldn’t capitalize,” Verhaeghe said. “[Vladar] was right there.”
Brad Marchand did give the Panthers the early lead by scoring his team-leading 14th goal thanks to a gorgeous pass from Sam Bennett.
The Flyers, meanwhile, had a great chance to tie the score in the waning moments of the first period, but an all-alone Trevor Zegras missed the net.
In Period 2, the script flipped. And 23-year-old defenseman Emil Andrae was in the middle of it all. He scored one goal (on a exchange in which Bobrovsky lost his stick) and set up another (Matvei Michkov redirected Andrae’s shot past Bob) to send the game to the second intermission tied at 2-2. The Panthers built their 2-0 edge on goals by Marchand and Verhaeghe, who scored on yet another sweet feed from Bennett. But they coughed up that entire lead in a span of four and a half minutes.
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Bobrovsky more than made up for some shaky moments earlier in the game with a marvelous start to the third, as the Flyers very easily could have led 4-2 four minutes into the period. Bobrovsky saves and a forgiving post kept the score tied.
But ultimately, the faster Flyers made the Panthers pay for letting them back in the game. After those 15 first-period shots, the Panthers had just 12 over the final 40 minutes.
“I thought we were slow with the puck,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. “We were just late getting to some loose pucks that were laying around, and they maintained that control.” Added defenseman Seth Jones added: “I think our shooter mentality kind of faded away.”
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This and that
Panthers star forward Matthew Tkachuk revealed on the “Wingmen” podcast he co-hosts with brother Brady that he has recently resumed skating for the first time since undergoing surgery in the summer that has kept him out of the first 23 games of the season. Tkachuk, who played through a sports hernia and torn adductor muscle during Florida’s most recent Stanley Cup run, is “still quite a way away, but he’s back on the ice, and he wasn’t two weeks ago,” Maurice said before the game. “So we’re taking it.”