The Florida Panthers find themselves five points out of a playoff spot after the results of Tuesday night’s games that saw the Buffalo Sabres and Boston Bruins switch wild card positions. Buffalo beat Nashville 5-3 to jump the Bruins, who lost 6-2 to Dallas. The Panthers have two games in hand on the Bruins.
Stepan Gorbunov scored the go-ahead goal in the third and added a empty-netter which became the game-winner in Chelmet Chelyabinsk’s 3-2 victory over HC Rostov in Wednesday action from Russia’s Supreme Hockey League. Gorbunov, a sixth-rounder in 2024, has 7 goals and 14 points in 17 VHL games this season.
Yegor Midlak, Florida’s seventh-rounder in 2025, gave up two goals in MHK Sparta-MAH Moskva’s 3-1 loss to Amurskie Tigry in action from Russia’s junior MHL. It was Midlak’s tenth appearance of the season. He sports a 2-4 record, .913 save percentage and 3.39 goals against average.
The Charlotte Checkers maintained their third place position in the AHL’s Atlantic Division by collecting three out of a possible four points against the Hershey Bears this past weekend to finish a six-game homestand with a 4-1-1 record.
On Saturday, the Checkers fell 4-3 when Hershey’s Andrew Cristall scored a power-play goal with 46 seconds left in overtime. Wilmer Skoog, Robert Mastrosimone and Trevor Carrick scored second period goals to stake Charlotte to a 3-1 lead they would relinquish in the third. Assists were credited to Liam McLinskey (two), Colton Huard, Jake Livingstone, Jack Devine and Ben Steeves. Cooper Black took the loss, finishing with 22 saves on 26 shots.
The Checkers bounced back with a 4-3 shootout win on Sunday. Carrick, Nolan Foote and Mike Benning scored the Charlotte goals. Assists were collected by Foote, Devine, Brian Pinho, Carrick and Mastrosimone. Pinho scored the winning (and only) goal of the shootout in the fifth round. Kirill Gerasimyuk stopped 16 of 19 shots to pick up his fourth AHL win.
The Checkers will open a four-game road trip on Friday versus Lehigh Valley.
Wednesday in the Atlantic (Standings/Panthers Playoff Chances)
DETROIT (30-16-4 64P) at TORONTO (24-17-8 56P) 7 p.m. (TNT)
Idle: TBL (64P), MON (63P). BUF (59P), BOS (58P), FLA ( 53P), OTT (53P)