The Florida Panthers bounced back from an embarrassing performance in Raleigh with a gutsy 5-2 win over the Washington Capitals in the second half of a back-to-back to close its six-game road trip on a positive note.

After the Capitals had a goal wiped off the board, the Panthers opened the scoring 13:23 into the first when Sam Bennett tracked down Aaron Ekblad’s dump in. Bennett tried to come out in front and stuff the puck past Logan Thompson. Thompson denied the bid, but kicked the puck out to A.J. Greer and he buried it to reach double-digit goals for the first time in his career.

Washington would even it up 2:04 into the middle frame. With the teams skating 4-on-4, Jakob Chychrun dropped the puck Aliaksei Protas, who was able to lug the puck into the Florida zone through traffic before backhanding back to Chychrun, who beat Daniil Tarasov with a beautiful wrister from the left circle. The secondary helper went to John Carlson.

Chychrun would strike again eight minutes later to put the home team on top. After receiving a pass from Nic Dowd, Chychrun exchanged crosses with Carlson before beating Tarasov with a seeing-eye shot from long range with Ivan Miroshnichenko providing the key screen.

Bennett would come up big 1:04 later to forge a 2-2 tie. After Tobias Björnfot’s shot was blocked, he regained possession and fed Niko Mikkola, who passed to Carter Verhaeghe on the right side. Verhaeghe curled up into the middle off the ice and sent the puck down low, where it bounced off of Dylan Strome and came to Bennett, who quickly banged it home.

A delay of game call on Alex Ovechkin put the Cats on a power play and they would take advantage to grab the lead back 3:36 after Bennett’s marker. After taking a low to high feed from Sam Reinhart, Anton Lundell sent the puck to Uvis Balinksis, who moved to the center of the blue line area. The two played catch again with Lundell returning a cheeky backhand pass back to Balinskis for a blistering one-timer by Thompson’s glove.

The Panthers would clamp down on the Capitals in the third, holding them to a mere six shots on goals before putting the game away with a pair of empty-netters.

Instead of trying to make a difficult shot from deep in his own end after intercepting Connor McMichael’s desperate backhand pass, Reinhart settled himself and head-manned to Lundell, who had a clear path to find the back of the net from his own blue line with 1:20 remaining.

The Capitals would pull Thompson again and this time Greer would send Bennett and Verhaeghe off on a 2-on-1 break that culminated with Carter finishing off the unselfish crossing pass from Sam at 19:26, setting off a bit of a love fest on the bench.

By starting strong and eventually completing the season-series sweep against Washington, the Panthers finished the road trip with a 3-3 record. They won three of the last four games to get that result after beginning with losses in Toronto and Montreal. Florida is now four points behind the Buffalo Sabres for the second wild card. The Cats will return home to host the San Jose Sharks on Monday before heading back out on the road to face Winnipeg. Minnesota and Chicago.

The Five Hole

Sam Bennett earned the First Star nod for his one-goal, two-assist performance. It was Bennett’s third multi-point game since the calendar turned to 2026.

Uvis Balinskis notched the first game-winning goal and lit the lamp in back-to-back games for the first time in his NHL career.

Daniil Tarasov stopped 22 of 24 shots to even his record at 6-6-2 on the season. We need to see more Tarasov the rest of the way.

In addition to finishing with a goal and an assist, Anton Lundell went 13-for-19 on faceoffs. and was credited with two shots and two hits.

The Panthers shrugged off their worst defeat of the season and upped its record to 14-7-1 in games following a loss. Impressive, most impressive.