{"id":535342,"date":"2026-04-01T20:36:51","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T20:36:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/535342\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T20:36:51","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T20:36:51","slug":"panthers-open-scoring-historically-early-in-lopsided-win-over-senators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/535342\/","title":{"rendered":"Panthers open scoring historically early in lopsided win over Senators"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Florida Panthers defenceman Seth Jones (3), left wing Tomas Nosek (92) and Ottawa Senators right wing Claude Giroux (28) go for the puck during the first period of their game on Tuesday in Sunrise, Fla.Lynne Sladky\/The Associated Press<\/p>\n

Noah Gregor scored eight seconds into the game to open an early five-goal barrage by Florida, Matthew Tkachuk had his first four-point game since December 2024, and the Panthers defeated the Ottawa Senators 6-3 on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

Carter Verhaeghe scored two goals and added an assist for Florida, while Seth Jones had three assists \u2013 including one on Gregor\u2019s history-making goal.<\/p>\n

Gregor\u2019s goal was the fastest to open a game in Panthers history \u2013 two seconds ahead of Johan Garpenlov\u2019s goal at the 10-second mark of a game against Colorado in October 1996 \u2013 and the fastest to start a game in the NHL this season.<\/p>\n

A.J. Greer and Mackie Samoskevich also scored for Florida, while Sam Bennett added two assists and Daniil Tarasov stopped 22 shots for the Panthers.<\/p>\n

Drake Batherson, Jordan Spence and Michael Amadio scored for Ottawa, which has gone 0-2-1 in its last three games as it chases a wild-card berth in the Eastern Conference. Linus Ullmark started and stopped 11 of 16 shots before getting chased after Florida took a 5-0 lead with 5:24 left in the first period.<\/p>\n

James Reimer replaced Ullmark and stopped 12 of 13 shots.<\/p>\n

Matthew Tkachuk had a goal and three assists in the game. It was the 25th time he\u2019s gone head-to-head in the NHL with his brother Brady Tkachuk, the Senators\u2019 captain; Matthew Tkachuk\u2019s teams have now won 15 of those meetings.<\/p>\n

Linesman Brad Kovachik worked regular-season game No. 1,972 of his career \u2013 and it\u2019ll be the last. The veteran of three decades is retiring, ending a career that saw him work the Stanley Cup final in five different years, as well as the 2014 Sochi Olympics.<\/p>\n

Players from both teams lined up to shake Kovachik\u2019s hand during a first-period stoppage in play.<\/p>\n

Up next<\/p>\n

Senators: Host the Buffalo Sabres on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Panthers: Host the Boston Bruins on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Florida Panthers defenceman Seth Jones (3), left wing Tomas Nosek (92) and Ottawa…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":535343,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5102],"tags":[1018,1001,1019,967,991,1020,19,990,1008,1009,1004,992,989,1014,1016,1013,1007,62,57,5141,1000,1030,993,994,1006,5,1002,1003,997,1021,998,1025,1026,4,1028,1023,1027,786,63,1024,995,1011,1012,333,1010,1022,86,1015,1017,1005,999,996,1029],"class_list":{"0":"post-535342","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida-panthers","8":"tag-alberta","9":"tag-arts-news","10":"tag-bc","11":"tag-breaking-news","12":"tag-breaking-news-video","13":"tag-british-columbia","14":"tag-canada","15":"tag-canada-news","16":"tag-canada-sports","17":"tag-canada-sports-news","18":"tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","19":"tag-canadian-breaking-news","20":"tag-canadian-news","21":"tag-economy","22":"tag-education","23":"tag-environment","24":"tag-federal-government","25":"tag-florida","26":"tag-florida-panthers","27":"tag-floridapanthers","28":"tag-foreign-news","29":"tag-globe-and-mail","30":"tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","31":"tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","32":"tag-government","33":"tag-hockey","34":"tag-life-news","35":"tag-lifestyle","36":"tag-local-news","37":"tag-manitoba","38":"tag-national-news","39":"tag-new-brunswick","40":"tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","41":"tag-nhl","42":"tag-northwest-territories","43":"tag-nova-scotia","44":"tag-nunavut","45":"tag-ontario","46":"tag-panthers","47":"tag-pei","48":"tag-photos","49":"tag-political-news","50":"tag-political-opinion","51":"tag-politics","52":"tag-politics-news","53":"tag-quebec","54":"tag-sports-news","55":"tag-technology","56":"tag-travel","57":"tag-trudeau","58":"tag-us-news","59":"tag-world-news","60":"tag-yukon"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535342","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=535342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}