“Just trying to shoot it as hard as I can, and hopefully it goes in,” Forsling said.

Soon after, Bobrovsky denied Claude Giroux on a breakaway to keep Ottawa off the board.

“I just tried to hold my ground,” said Bobrovsky, who slammed shut his five-hole on the save.

Lending their goalie a hand with some big defensive players throughout the game, the Panthers shut down another scoring chance for the Senators when Niko Mikkola laid out and poked away the puck to stifle a 2-on-1 rush near the midway point of the third period.

After pulling their goaltender to gain a 6-on-5 advantage, the Senators managed to make it a one-goal game when Drake Batherson scored to cut Florida’s lead to 3-2 with 1:42 left.

From there, the Panthers didn’t surrender another shot on goal until the final horn.

“We stayed calmed, stayed tight together,” Forsling said of locking down a big win on the road. “We got the pucks out and did a good job. Bob made some huge saves, too.”

THEY SAID IT

“You can survive moments of your game that don’t look necessarily like the way you want to play, right? We’re going to have some pucks that don’t get out, plays that don’t get in, some plays that don’t get complete. With so many big men out of our lineup, the weight isn’t really there, but the compete was tonight.” – Paul Maurice

“I just got a little more confident with every period, with every shift. I think that really helped with the debut I had. I played a lot. With every shift, I got more confident.” – Sandis Vilmanis

“It was a good game. Again, a really tight game. I thought we played fast. I thought we played strong in all zones.” – Sergei Bobrovsky

CATS STATS

– The Panthers scored a goal in all three periods.

– Carter Verhaeghe has scored two goals in his last three games.

– The Panthers didn’t allow more than seven shots in a single period.

– Niko Mikkola saw a team-high 24:27 of ice time.

– The Panthers went 2-for-4 on the power play and 5-for-5 on the penalty kill.

– Sergei Bobrovsky made seven high-danger saves, per NaturalStatTrick.com

WHAT’S NEXT?

The Panthers will face another tough divisional test when they visit KeyBank Center for a showdown with the red-hot Buffalo Sabres on Monday at 7 p.m. ET.

To find a place to watch in South Florida, click HERE.