Verhaeghe, Panthers rally for OT victory against Blue Jackets

SUNRISE, Fla. -- Carter Verhaeghe scored at 1:26 of overtime, and the Florida Panthers rallied for a 5-4 win against the Columbus Blue Jackets at Amerant Bank Arena on Monday.

Verhaeghe won it on a 2-on-1 when he scored on a rebound of Anton Lundell’s shot after Nick Cousins tied it 4-4 with 57 seconds left in the third period.

Sam Reinhart had two assists, and Sergei Bobrovsky made 18 saves for the Panthers (6-4-1), who scored three goals in the first 6:09 before having to rally late.

“It felt good,” Verhaeghe said. “[It’s] nice to get to the win, but it is not the way you draw it up. It started off good, we let them back in it. But there are no bad wins.”

Alexandre Texier had a goal and an assist, and Erik Gudbranson had two assists for the Blue Jackets (4-5-3), who have lost six of seven (1-3-3). Spencer Martin made 34 saves in relief of Elvis Merzlikins, who allowed three goals on 11 shots.

“It was a big point, but right now, we want that second one for sure,” Gudbranson said. “We had some really hard times in the beginning of the game and came together as a group against a good hockey team. We just had to put it away.”

With Bobrovsky pulled for an extra attacker, Cousins tied it at 19:03 of the third with a wrist shot from the slot after a failed clearing attempt by Ivan Provorov.

“It was a fortunate play in which the guy tried to clear it and it kind of went off me and I was able to make a play,” Cousins said. “I thought we had a strong first period, but when they switched goalies it switched momentum in their favor. Give them credit; they turned the page and took it to us for a while. But this is a big two points for us.”

Ryan Lomberg gave Florida a 1-0 lead at 2:19 of the first period with a wrist shot from behind the goal line snuck past Merzlikins, and Gustav Forsling made it 2-0 just 40 seconds later at 3:09 when his wrist shot from the left point found its way through traffic.

Aleksander Barkov scored on a rebound in front to make it 3-0 at 6:09, prompting Columbus coach Pascal Vincent to pull Merzlikins.

“The first 10 minutes, we were just watching the other team,” Vincent said. “We were just trying to contain and maintain, and that’s not our style of play. We need to be aggressive, winning 1-on-1 battles. We didn’t win any races, we didn’t win any 1-on-1s.”

After being outshot 20-1, the Blue Jackets cut it to 3-1 at 15:41 when Sean Kuraly scored on a rebound of Gudbranson’s wrist shot, and Boone Jenner made it 3-2 at 18:51 on a wrist shot from the right face-off circle after Verhaeghe turned the puck over in the offensive zone.

Columbus had the final six shots of the first.

“It was an interesting game,” Florida coach Paul Maurice said. “We were dominant in the first period, for sure, but I think where it turned was they blocked 12 shots in the second after only three in the first. We stopped moving our feet, had the shots blocked and started feeling that we had a 3-0 lead. There was very little going against us, and then the breaks weren’t going for us.’’

Kirill Marchenko tied it 3-3 on a power play at 10:02 of the second period, tapping a loose puck over the goal line after Provorov’s wrist shot got between Bobrovsky’s skates.

Martin stopped all 12 shots he faced in the second.

“They were obviously bringing it to us in the first period, and I just had to do my job,” Martin said. “I have the best job in the world and am never upset to get in there. There are some nerves; it is hard to calm down at first. But there were some early shots and I felt good.”

Texier gave Columbus a 4-3 lead at 12:30 of the third. His attempted cross-ice feed from the right wing on a 2-on-1 went off the stick of Florida defenseman Dmitry Kulikov and the near goal post, where Texier stuffed it past Bobrovsky for his first goal of the season.

But the Blue Jackets were unable to protect the one-goal lead long enough.

“There were different kinds of emotions during the game, but you crawl your way back into the game and [make] one mistake and then you’re in overtime,” Vincent said. “It’s frustrating. It’s disappointing for the guys because we expected a storm early in the game after Florida lost in Chicago (5-2 on Saturday). Maybe not that kind of push, but it was a hard push and we didn’t manage it well. But we got back into it.”

NOTES: The Panthers have scored three faster goals to start a game once in the past eight years (6:04 on March 16, 2022, against the Montreal Canadiens). … Florida did not allow a goal to Columbus in the previous two games. … Forsling had seven shots on goal in 21:34 of ice time, and Panthers forward Matthew Tkachuk had seven shots and one assist in 20:49. … Blue Jackets forward Johnny Gaudreau was minus-2 and had four shots in 19:58 after being benched for the last 16:07 of a 2-1 loss to the Washington Capitals on Saturday. Gaudreau has one goal and five points in 12 games this season.