{"id":546764,"date":"2026-04-08T04:55:35","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T04:55:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/546764\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T04:55:35","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T04:55:35","slug":"canadiens-rally-past-panthers-move-into-tie-for-atlantics-top-spot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/546764\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadiens rally past Panthers, move into tie for Atlantic&#8217;s top spot"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Cole Caufield and Alexandre Texier scored in the shootout after Nick Suzuki\u2019s late tying goal as the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/hockey\/nhl\/teams\/montreal-canadiens\/\" class=\"sn-team-post-link\" target=\"_self\" data-team=\"montreal-canadiens\" data-league=\"nhl\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Montreal Canadiens<\/a> came back to beat the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/hockey\/nhl\/teams\/florida-panthers\/\" class=\"sn-team-post-link\" target=\"_self\" data-team=\"florida-panthers\" data-league=\"nhl\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Florida Panthers<\/a> 4-3 on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n<p>Ivan Demidov and Phillip Danault also scored in regulation as playoff-bound Montreal (46-22-10) won for the ninth time in 10 games. Juraj Slafkovsky added two assists and Jakub Dobes made 30 saves for his sixth consecutive win.<\/p>\n<p>Caufield remained one goal shy of his 50th for the third consecutive game after scoring Nos. 48 and 49 on Thursday against the New York Rangers.<\/p>\n<p>Eetu Luostarinen, Carter Verhaeghe and Cole Reinhardt replied for fading Florida (37-37-4), which lost its eighth straight game against the Canadiens. Daniil Tarasov stopped 29 shots.<\/p>\n<p>The two-time reigning Stanley Cup champions entered the night 27th in the overall league standings and out of playoff contention.<\/p>\n<p>The Canadiens remain in third in the Atlantic Division, but with 102 points are tied with the Tampa Bay Lightning and Buffalo Sabres for first place.<\/p>\n<p>Suzuki tied the game at 3-3 with 20.1 seconds remaining in the third after a stunning solo effort from Lane Hutson to set up the goal.<\/p>\n<p>Hutson then drew a high-sticking penalty from Tomas Nosek with 12 seconds remaining in regulation, but the Canadiens couldn\u2019t capitalize in five minutes of thrilling 3-on-3 overtime.<\/p>\n<p>Danault tied the score at 2-2 at 6:22 in the third period when he corralled a loose puck and beat Tarasov through a crowd for his first goal in 15 games, energizing the Bell Centre.<\/p>\n<p>Luostarinen quickly quieted the crowd, deflecting a Gustav Forsling point shot 1:27 later to put the Panthers ahead 3-2, setting up Hutson and Suzuki\u2019s late-game dramatics.<\/p>\n<p>Canadiens: Forwards Kirby Dach and Texier returned to the lineup, while veteran Brendan Gallagher (healthy scratch) and Joe Veleno (flu) sat out. Defenceman Adam Engstrom drew in for Kaiden Guhle (maintenance).<\/p>\n<p>Panthers: Forward Matthew Tkachuk missed the game for the birth of his first child, adding to a long list of absences for Florida. More than half of the Panthers\u2019 usual roster is out for the season after three straight trips to the Stanley Cup final.<\/p>\n<p>With 25 seconds left in the third, Hutson skated into the Panthers&#8217; zone and dragged Tarasov out of his net before sending a pass from behind the goal line to Suzuki, who deposited the puck into the empty cage.<\/p>\n<p>Caufield is scoreless in three straight games for the first time since posting four consecutive goalless outings from Jan. 8 to 12.<\/p>\n<p>Canadiens: Host the Lightning on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>Panthers: Visit the Ottawa Senators on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cole Caufield and Alexandre Texier scored in the shootout after Nick Suzuki\u2019s late tying goal as the Montreal&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":546765,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5102],"tags":[62,57,5141,5,4,63],"class_list":{"0":"post-546764","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\/116367309446198405","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546764","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=546764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/546765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}