The Florida Panthers will have to start a new point streak after their seven-gamer came to an end on Thursday night.
Florida ran into an energized Vancouver Canucks bunch, and they put on a good show for the Rogers Arena faithful, defeating the Panthers 4-0.
For the second time in as many games on their road trip, Florida found themselves trailing early.
A Panthers rush through the neutral zone turned quickly when Tomas Nosek blew a tire and rookie Max Sasson picked up the puck and carried it into Florida’s zone.
Sasson left a drop pass for Carson Soucy and his long wrist shot was deflected off the stick blade of Aaron Ekbald and over the shoulder of Sergei Bobrovsky just 2:23 into the game.
A quick exit from the Cats zone late in the period would send into the first intermission Vancouver with a 2-0 lead.
Danton Heinen finished off another rush goal by the Canucks, tapping in a pass from Max Sasson with 1:19 to go.
Vancouver didn’t record their first shot of the second period until over five minutes in, but unfortunately for the Cats, it would find it’s way in the net.
A shot by Brock Boeser went wide of the net, but the puck popped right back out in front of the goal line to where Boeser had followed, and he shot into an empty net after Bob went to the wrong post, possibly thinking a pass was coming based off his reaction.
Florida outshot Vancouver 12-5 during the middle frame, but the Canucks scored the only goal and took the commanding 3-0 lead into the third period.
Jake DeBrusk scored his 14th goal of the season with the Canucks on the power play to give the home team a four-goal advantage, and that’s the way things would end.
On to Calgary.
QUICK THOUGHTS
Soucy’s goal was his first in 61 games.
Florida had not been held scoreless through the first two periods in any game this season before Thursday night in Vancouver.
The last time Florida was shutout was March 21 of last season, a 3-0 loss to Nashville. The goalie was Kevin Lankinen.
He finished with 27 saves, including all six of Florida’s high danger shots.
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