{"id":534211,"date":"2026-04-01T06:12:26","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T06:12:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/534211\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T06:12:26","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T06:12:26","slug":"panthers-score-5-goals-in-1st-period-hold-off-senators-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/534211\/","title":{"rendered":"Panthers score 5 goals in 1st period, hold off Senators"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael Amadio<\/a> had a goal and an assist, and Drake Batherson<\/a> and Jordan Spence<\/a> scored for the Senators (38-26-10), who have lost three straight. Linus Ullmark<\/a> allowed five goals on 16 shots before being replaced by James Reimer<\/a>, who made 12 saves in relief.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ottawa remained two points behind the Columbus Blue Jackets for the final wild card into the playoffs from the Eastern Conference with eight games remaining. The Senators have played one fewer game than the Blue Jackets.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cDisappointing. We talked about the importance of a good start in this building and that was the opposite,\u201d Ottawa coach Travis Green said. \u201cWe just looked flat, didn\u2019t have a lot of energy. \u2026 We just weren\u2019t good enough tonight. Flat out, we had a lot of players who weren\u2019t good enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Noah Gregor<\/a> gave the Panthers a 1-0 lead eight seconds into the first. After Florida won the opening face-off, Jones sent the puck into the offensive zone and off the end boards. It caromed to the front of the net, and Ullmark deferred playing it before it rolled off Spence\u2019s stick and went right to Gregor for the finish.<\/p>\n

Mackie Samoskevich<\/a> made it 2-0 at 1:06 with a power-play goal from the right side, redirecting Jones\u2019 backdoor pass.<\/p>\n

The Panthers extended the lead to 3-0 with another power-play goal at 9:09.\u00a0Verhaeghe gathered a loose puck to the right of the net and banked in a sharp-angled shot off Ullmark.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a great first and just stuck with it,\u201d Verhaeghe said. \u201cWe were moving, were good on the forecheck, and were skating with the puck.\u201d<\/p>\n

Florida then pushed the lead to 5-0 by scoring twice within 34 seconds. A.J. Greer<\/a> one-timed a pass from Eetu Luostarinen<\/a>\u00a0at 14:02, and Verhaeghe scored off a Bennett feed on a 2-on-1 at 14:36, chasing Ullmark.<\/p>\n

Batherson\u2019s 30th goal of the season made it 5-1 at 1:40 of the second period. He scored with a wrist shot from the left face-off circle.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe generated a bit in the second to just try and get back in the game,\u201d Batherson said. \u201cWe\u2019re in the middle of the hunt right now for a spot. We have to get ready for the next game. \u2026 It isn\u2019t like losing tonight means the season is over. It probably makes our job a little harder. But I trust this group.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tkachuk got his fourth point of the night and gave Florida a 6-1 lead at 12:41 when he charged the net and scored off a pass from Bennett following an Ottawa turnover in its own zone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael Amadio had a goal and an assist, and Drake Batherson and Jordan Spence scored for the Senators…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":534067,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5102],"tags":[62,57,5141,5,4,63],"class_list":{"0":"post-534211","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida-panthers","8":"tag-florida","9":"tag-florida-panthers","10":"tag-floridapanthers","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-panthers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116327975807485330","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534211\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/534067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}