Nearly everyone involved in Florida scoring as Panthers beat Canucks

Jordan McPherson, Miami Herald on Nov 17, 2025

Published in Hockey

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The Florida Panthers shook off their loss a couple days ago to the Tampa Bay Lightning and a two-goal deficit in the first period Monday to beat the Vancouver Canucks 8-5 at Amerant Bank Arena.

But they still can’t shake off the injury bug, which once again is hitting the team.

The Panthers are already down five key players (forwards Aleksander Barkov, Matthew Tkachuk, Tomas Nosek and Jonah Gadjovich plus defenseman Dmitry Kulikov) long-term. They then entered Monday with a sixth in forward Eetu Luostarinen listed as day-to-day and had a seventh in forward Cole Schwindt exit in the first period after colliding with goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky when both tried to make a play on the puck.

And for good measure, forward Mackie Samoskevich, who moved to the top line in Luostarinen’s absence, briefly left in the second period when a Gustav Forsling shot from the point hit his hand.

But the Panthers (10-8-1) didn’t let that deter them.

Nor did they let the fact that Vancouver (9-10-2) jumped out to a 2-0 lead with a pair of goals in a 24-second span late in the first period AND erased Florida’s two-goal lead in the opening minutes of the third period.

Sam Bennett scored the go-ahead goal 4:02 into the third period when he deflected in a Niko Mikkola shot from the point past Vancouver goaltender Jiri Patera.

Before that, Florida scored five consecutive goals in a span of 11:27, stretching between the end of the first period and start of the second period, to take a commanding 5-2 lead. The breakdown of Florida’s goals in that run:

— 4:10 left in the first period: A.J. Greer scored on a snap shot from the slot on a feed from Carter Verhaeghe. Florida’s deficit cut to 2-1.

— 7.7 seconds left in the first period: Seth Jones and Sam Reinhart take a rush down the ice on the power play, with Jones firing the snap shot past Patera to tie the game. Bobrovsky had the secondary assist on the goal. Tie game, 2-2.

— 2:23 into the second period: Luke Kunin scored his first goal with the Panthers by cleaning up a rebound from a Noah Gregor shot. 3-2 Panthers.

— 6:10 into the second period: Evan Rodrigues gets a pass from Sam Reinhart and fires a shot from close range past Patera. 4-2 Panthers.

— 7:17 into the second period: Anton Lundell goes top shelf off a pass from Brad Marchand. 5-2 Panthers. Marchand’s assist extends his point streak to 11 games, two shy of matching his career high.

It temporarily erased the two-goal deficit Florida fell into when Drew O’Connor and Jake DeBrusk scored 24 seconds apart in the first period.

But Vancouver rallied back with three goals. Elias Pettersson scored the first two — cutting Florida’s lead to 5-3 with 7:55 left in the second and then 5-4 1:24 into the third — before Filip Hronek scored on the power play 3:14 into the final frame.

Bennett then put Florida ahead for good, Jones gave the Panthers a needed insurance goal and Marchand capped scoring on an empty netter for his team-leading 13th goal.

Overall, 16 Panthers players had at least one point on Monday. Reinhart had three assists. Verhaeghe had two. Marchand and Bennett each had a goal and an assist.

Despite a rough outing in net (five goals allowed on 15 shots), Bobrovsky earned his 438th career win, breaking a tie with Jacques Plante for ninth all-time in NHL history. Terry Sawchuk is eighth with 445 wins.

Florida continues its five-game homestand on Thursday against the New Jersey Devils.

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