Forsling lifts undermanned Panthers past Golden Knights in OT

SUNRISE, Fla. -- Gustav Forsling scored with 17 seconds left in overtime, giving the Florida Panthers a 4-3 win against the Vegas Golden Knights at Amerant Bank Arena on Saturday.

Forsling won it with a one-timer from the right side off a cross-ice pass from Sam Bennett.

“We’re playing the right way right now, we’re playing hard,” Forsling said. “Huge win, huge points. A lot of guys stepped up.”

Sam Reinhart had a goal and two assists, and Bennett had a goal and an assist for the Panthers (4-2-1), who are 3-0-1 in their past four. Anton Lundell and Aaron Ekblad each had two assists, and Sergei Bobrovsky made 23 saves for Florida, which was down a skater with 17 healthy.

The Panthers were already missing center Aleksander Barkov (lower-body injury) and forward Matthew Tkachuk (illness) when forward Jonah Gadjovich left a 3-2 overtime loss to the Vancouver Canucks on Thursday with an upper-body injury. With those three unavailable Saturday, and the Panthers unable to call up a player due to NHL salary cap constraints, they played with 11 forwards (one of whom is defenseman Uvis Balinskis) and six defensemen.

“I liked that game an awful lot tonight,” Florida coach Paul Maurice said. “That’s 11 (forwards) down a guy and they are a deep team with a heavy back end. That’s as good a game as we have played this year.

“We had some turnovers, and you know what? Don’t even care about them. Sergei had to make a couple of big saves off it, but the effort was just outstanding. The compete was great.”

Tanner Pearson had a goal and an assist, Nicolas Roy had two assists, and Ilya Samsonov made 45 saves for the Golden Knights (3-2-1), who went 0-2-1 on a three-game road trip.

“We scored three goals on the road again tonight and at least we got a point, so that’s a positive,” Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said. “You play good teams and they’re going to get chances off unforced errors. We need to clean those up.”

Pearson put the Golden Knights ahead 1-0 at 19:27 of the first period on a one-timer from the left face-off circle off a pass by Roy, who intercepted a Lundell pass in the Panthers zone.

Reinhart tied it 1-1 at 1:09 of the second period. He scored on a one-timer from the right side after Lundell’s pass across the middle bounded off the right boards.

Keegan Kolesar gave the Golden Knights a 2-1 lead at 14:15 when he deflected a Pearson shot in front.

Bennett pulled the Panthers even at 2-2 on the power play at 19:20, scoring on a one-timer off a Carter Verhaeghe pass.

Brett Howden put Vegas back in front 3-2 at 7:30 of the third period. He stole the puck from A.J. Greer in the neutral zone and scored with a forehand-to-backhand move on Bobrovsky.

Eetu Luostarinen then tied it 3-3 at 12:43. Reinhart got the rebound of Ekblad’s point shot to the right of the net and passed into the slot, where Luostarinen scored into an open net.

“That’s not how you want a road trip to go, but we can fix a few things and put it behind us at the same time,” Pearson said. “Teams in the NHL don’t give up and maybe work a little harder when down. We need to match that.”

Florida is 3-1-1 in five games without Barkov and Tkachuk. Each could return next week.

“We buy in to the system up and down the lineup and we had outstanding goaltending,” Ekblad said. “All the things you would expect from a team down two of the best players in the world.”

NOTES: Reinhart has 10 points, including all five of his goals this season, in a five-game point streak and has had at least one point in six of Florida’s seven games. He had his second three-point game of the season Saturday after having a goal and two assists in a 4-3 win at the Columbus Blue Jackets on Tuesday. … Bobrovsky got his 399th NHL win in his 705th game and could become the fastest goalie to reach 400. Henrik Lundqvist did it in 727 games. … Samsonov tied Marc-Andre Fleury (against the Dallas Stars on Oct. 6, 2017) for the second-most saves in Golden Knights history, two behind Adin Hill (47 saves against the Devils on March 3, 2023). … Jack Eichel and Mark Stone were trying to become the first players in Vegas history to start a season with a six-game point streak, but neither forward had a point Saturday.