{"id":535616,"date":"2026-04-01T23:48:38","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T23:48:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/535616\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T23:48:38","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T23:48:38","slug":"panthers-6-3-senators-mar-31-2026-game-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/535616\/","title":{"rendered":"Panthers 6-3 Senators (Mar 31, 2026) Game Recap"},"content":{"rendered":"

SUNRISE, Fla. — \u2014 Noah Gregor<\/a> scored eight seconds into the game to open an early five-goal barrage by Florida, Matthew Tkachuk<\/a> had his first four-point game since December 2024 and the Panthers defeated the Ottawa Senators<\/a> 6-3 on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

Carter Verhaeghe<\/a> scored two goals and added an assist for Florida, while Seth Jones<\/a> had three assists \u2014 including one on Gregor’s history-making goal.<\/p>\n

Gregor’s goal was the fastest to open a game in Panthers history \u2014 two seconds ahead of Johan Garpenlov’s goal at the 10-second mark of a game against Colorado in October 1996 \u2014 and the fastest to start a game in the NHL this season.<\/p>\n

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

Drake Batherson<\/a>, Jordan Spence<\/a> and Michael Amadio<\/a> scored for Ottawa, which has gone 0-2-1 in its last three games as it chases a wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference. Linus Ullmark<\/a> 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<\/a> 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’s gone head-to-head in the NHL with his brother Brady Tkachuk<\/a>, the Senators’ captain; Matthew Tkachuk’s teams have now won 15 of those meetings.<\/p>\n

Linesman Brad Kovachik worked regular-season game No. 1,972 of his career \u2014 and it’ll 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’s hand during a first-period stoppage in play.<\/p>\n

Up next <\/p>\n

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

Panthers: Host the Boston Bruins<\/a> on Thursday.<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

AP NHL: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nhl<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SUNRISE, Fla. — \u2014 Noah Gregor scored eight seconds into the game to open an early five-goal barrage…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":535617,"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-535616","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\/116332128198104310","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535616","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=535616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}