Reinhart scores 40th, 41st goals to help Panthers top Canadiens in shootout

SUNRISE, Fla. -- Sam Reinhart had three points, including his 40th and 41st goals of the season, and the Florida Panthers defeated the Montreal Canadiens 4-3 in the shootout at Amerant Bank Arena on Thursday.

Reinhart, who had not scored in seven games, became the third player in the NHL to reach 40 goals (Auston Matthews, Toronto Maple Leafs, 53; Zach Hyman, Edmonton Oilers, 40).

“You do feel it,” Reinhart said of having been just shy of 40 goals. “You feel it at 19, 29, and 39 -- you feel it, for sure. We have been doing a lot of good things, so a lot of my [goals] have come on the power play (23). We move around, find the open guy. We have been sharing the puck well lately.”

Aleksander Barkov had a goal and two assists, and Anthony Stolarz made 28 saves for the Panthers (40-16-4), who have won three straight games and nine of 10. Barkov and Anton Lundell scored in the shootout.

Nick Suzuki had a goal and two assists for the Canadiens (23-28-9), who have lost six of seven overall and 11 of 12 to the Panthers. Sam Montembeault made 33 saves.

“I thought we played really well,” Montembeault said. “We played a very good game and it just goes to show we can compete with anyone and all of the top teams in the League. … We would have liked to have come out of here with a win.”

Florida took a 1-0 lead at 7:01 of the first period when Barkov scored from the left circle on the rush off a pass from Reinhart.

Suzuki tied it 1-1 at 8:24 on a breakaway, taking a long pass from Arber Xhekaj and scoring with a wrist shot over Stolarz’s glove.

“Guys battled hard all night and it is tough, but we played really well against a really good team,” said Suzuki, the Montreal captain. “There are a lot of good things we can take away. It feels good to feel confident out there.”

Reinhart put Florida up 2-1 on the power play at 14:08 of the second period after taking a feed in the low slot from Matthew Tkachuk.

Juraj Slafkovsky tied it 2-2 with one second left in the period. He scored with a wrist shot from the top of the left circle after Suzuki won a face-off to him.

“You don’t see that very often,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. “I don’t think it affected our bench very much, they just kept grinding.”

Montreal took a 3-2 lead at 3:27 of the third period when Alex Newhook scored a power-play goal from the left circle.

“I thought we played very well on the special teams although they did tie it on our power play, and that is disappointing,” said Montreal coach Martin St. Louis, whose team was 4-for-5 on the penalty kill. “We matched them pretty good tonight.”

Reinhart tied it 3-3 with a short-handed goal at 13:05. He intercepted a pass just outside the zone, drove down the right side and scored from the bottom of the right circle.

“It was not an easy game because [Montreal] played hard,” Lundell said. That was a good hockey game tonight. There was nothing easy and we knew we would have to battle every shift against that team.”

NOTES: The Panthers had allowed two or fewer goals in 14 straight games (12-2-0). ...
Barkov has 46 points (24 goals, 22 assists) in 34 games against Montreal. The only active players with more goals against the Canadiens are Alex Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals (38), Jeff Skinner of the Buffalo Sabres (27) and Matthews (26). … Reinhart became the fourth player in Panthers history to score 40 goals in a season (Pavel Bure, 59 in 2000-01 and 58 in 1999-00; Carter Verhaeghe, 42 in 2022-23; Tkachuk, 40 last season). Reinhart also scored his fifth short-handed goal, tying Simon Holmstrom of the New York Islanders and Travis Konecny of the Philadelphia Flyers for the NHL lead. He also tied Barkov (2017-18) and Bure (2000-01) for the second-most in a season in Florida history, one behind Tom Fitzgerald (1995-96). … Suzuki had 17 points (11 goals, six assists) in 11 games during February.