SUNRISE, Fla. -- The Florida Panthers clinched the top seed in the Eastern Conference after they tied their franchise record with their 12th consecutive victory, 5-2 against the Detroit Red Wings at FLA Live Arena on Thursday.
Panthers top Red Wings for 12th straight win, clinch No. 1 seed in East
Huberdeau has two assists, ties McDavid for NHL scoring lead
By
Alain Poupart
NHL.com Independent Correspondent
The Panthers (56-15-16) also clinched the top seed in the Atlantic Division after the Toronto Maple Leafs lost 8-1 to the Tampa Bay Lightning later Thursday. Florida is two points ahead of the Colorado Avalanche for the best record in the NHL.
"It means a lot," Florida defenseman MacKenzie Weegar said. "We put a lot of hard work into the season and locking up the division is a big accomplishment for us. But there's obviously the bigger picture here and we'll enjoy that, locking up division and getting the home-ice advantage for the playoffs here. But other than that, we're just trying to build our game and have fun while we're doing it."
The Panthers, who haven't lost since March 27, also won 12 straight in 2015-16. Six of the victories during the streak have been by at least three goals.
Jonathan Huberdeau had two assists to tie Connor McDavid for the NHL lead with 113 points (30 goals, 83 assists), and Sergei Bobrovsky made 27 saves.
Florida has allowed two goals or fewer in each of its past six games.
"The defensive game has been big for us," Weegar said. "We want to be on the right side of the puck all the time and 'Bob' has been great. It's nice not to have to come back all the time."
Mason Marchment had a goal and an assist, Aleksander Barkov scored his 39th goal of the season, and Noel Acciari scored in his return after missing 10 games with an undisclosed injury for the Panthers.
Sam Gagner and Tyler Bertuzzi scored for the Red Wings (30-38-10), who were coming off a 4-3 victory against the Tampa Bay Lightning. Alex Nedeljkovic made 22 saves.
Gagner gave Detroit a 1-0 lead at 4:08 of the first period before Acciari tied it 1-1 at 9:19.
Barkov and Marchment then scored 46 seconds apart late in the period to help the Panthers take a 3-1 lead.
"We're under-manned right now," Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill said. "I thought we had to play the right way and played a good first period, and then it's 3-1 and that's unfortunate. We have to be perfect in our game and we weren't."
Barkov, who scored a hat trick in a 3-2 overtime victory against the New York Islanders on Tuesday, gave Florida a 2-1 lead at 18:53 when he scored on the power play with a wrist shot from the high slot.
Marchment made it 3-1 at 19:39 when the puck bounced in off a skate after a goal-mouth scramble.
"He's been really good lately," coach Andrew Brunette said. "He's been great all year. He's had a tremendous hockey season. He's a force. With the puck, I don't know if it's a magnet to him, but it follows him around. You can't get it off him, and if you do, he gets it back right away. Kind of epitomizes his goal. I mean, that epitomizes 'Marchie' in general just how that went in and was kind of reckless and all over the place and it works."
Bertuzzi made it 3-2 at 6:15 of the second period with a wrist shot from the right circle that went in just under the crossbar.
Weegar made it 4-2 at 16:05 when he redirected Marchment's backhand pass to the front of the net.
Sam Reinhart made it 5-2 at 3:50 of the third period during a five-minute power play after Oskar Sundqvist was assessed a major and game misconduct for slashing the hand of defenseman Lucas Carlsson.
"It took us a while to get going, which kind of is expected," Brunette said. "There's a lot of hockey games right now and they played really well early. I thought they skated, they played fast. They were in our face and I don't know how committed we were early to play and then I thought we got a little physical in the second and we seemed to get a little momentum and kind of took over the hockey game."
NOTES: Florida has scored 322 goals this season, the most in the NHL since 1995-96, when Pittsburgh (362), Colorado (326) and Detroit (325) all scored more. … Detroit forward Filip Zadina was a late scratch because of an illness. … Red Wings forward Pius Suter had two assists. … Panthers forward Joe Thornton played 11:25 and had an assist after being a healthy scratch the previous seven games.
