5 TAKEAWAYS: Knight 'exceptional' as Panthers beat Canucks in shootout

Winning both halves of their back-to-back in Western Canada, the Panthers followed up last night's 6-0 beatdown of the Oilers with a tight 2-1 shootout win against the Canucks on Friday.
Coming out on top in the first-ever "Spencer Bowl," Spencer Knight stopped 27 shots for the Panthers, while Spencer Martin made 33 saves at the other end of the ice for the Canucks.

"I thought it was a good win for the whole team," said Knight, who improved to 8-5-2 on the season. "What's most important is that we all stuck it out. Those are tough games to play in, back-to-backs. Vancouver is a great team and they played really well."
While both teams had an opportunity on the man advantage in the first period, it was only the Canucks that capitalized. Putting the Panthers into an early 1-0 hole, Tanner Pearson tipped a shot from Quinn Hughes that then clipped off Alex Chiasson before sailing into the net at 16:18.
Following a scoreless second period, the Panthers pulled even with the Canucks on the power play when Sam Reinhart, a native of Vancouver, swept a bouncing puck past Martin and into the net from right outside the blue paint to make it a 1-1 game just 1:41 into the third period.
"We knew we were going to make a play," Panthers interim head coach Andrew Brunette said. "We have a lot of players that can make a play, and if we can make a play we have a chance to win the game. We made a play on the power play, which is huge on the road."
With the game eventually getting to overtime, the Panthers set up shop in the offensive zone for nearly the entire extra frame but were unable to find any seams to let loose a high-quality shot.
"We need to get it inside a little bit more," Brunette said of the sustained zone time.
But once the action got to the shootout, the talent really shined for the Panthers. Trailing 1-0 in the skills competition after Brock Boeser scored on Vancouver's first shot, Knight then answered with a save on Elias Pettersson before Anton Lundell roofed a silky backhander to make it 1-1.
Setting the stage for the winner soon after, Knight sprawled out to deny Quinn Hughes with his left pad. Feeding off that big stop, Aleksander Barkov then skated down the other side of the ice and beat Martin with an insanely impressive one-handed shot to lock in the 2-1 win for Florida.
"We stuck together and stuck with it," Knight said.
In first place in the NHL with a 28-8-5 record, the Cats have points in 11 of their last 12 games.
With two games left on their road trip, they'll have a day off before visiting Seattle on Sunday.
Here are five takeaways from Friday's win in Vancouver…

1. REINO RUNS WILD

When a Reino is charging, just get out of the way.
With the puck pinballing around the slot, Reinhart pounced on the rubber and whipped it past Martin right into the cage on the power play to make it a 1-1 game early on in the third period.
"He's been really good on the power play, and the power play, I feel, has been really good as of late," Brunette said of Reinhart, who has lit the lamp nine times in 12 career games against his hometown team. "That was a huge goal for us."

Making a dent on the scoresheet in 12 of his last 17 games, Reinhart has been producing at an exceptional rate for quite some time. During that 17-game stretch, the versatile winger has had seven multi-point performances while racking up a whopping 23 points (eight goals, 15 assists).
Climbing into a tie for second on the team in scoring, he's now up to 35 points this season.
"He's such a big part of our team, such an important piece," Brunette said.

2. KNIGHT TIME

Knight was in the zone from the moment the puck dropped tonight.
Turning aside 27 of 28 shots - including going 6-for-7 on shots from high-danger areas, according to NaturalStatTrick.com - the 20-year-old rookie played like a man possessed.
"A really good team effort," Knight said. "The guys did a really good job in front of me."
In the end, it was only a twice-deflected shot that slipped past him.
"Spencer really allowed us a chance to get the extra points here tonight," Brunette said.

While he had more than a few highlight-reel moments, Knight's biggest stop of the game was easily his sprawled-out pad save on Hughes to clear the way for Barkov to then net the winner.
"I think it's huge for his confidence," Brunette said.

3. ONE HAND

Speaking of confidence, who has more than the captain?
Showing off his otherworldly skills in the shootout, Barkov made an incredibly difficult move look effortless when he beat Martin with a one-handed winner that should end up on SportsCenter.

As someone that's been victimized by Barkov's shootout skills in practice, Knight said that the superstar center's stick often resembles a "magic wand" when he dips into his back of tricks.
"The things he does are crazy," he smiled. "There's really nothing you can do. He's got such a long reach. He's on one side of the net and then he's pulling it to the other side. It's amazing."
While that was only his first shootout goal of the season, Barkov has certainly been lighting the lamp at an impressive pace this season. Locked into a three-way tie for the team-lead in goals with 17, he's managed to do all of that damage on offense in just 28 games played this season.
Dating back to last season, Barkov is on a 2-for-4 run in the shootout.

4. HUBERDEAU MOVES UP

With the secondary assist on Reinhart's goal, Jonathan Huberdeau moved up the ladder.
At the time of this writing, the all-star winger sits alone in second place on the league's scoring leaderboard with 55 points (15 goals, 40 assists), only behind Washington's Alex Ovechkin's 56.
Reaching 40 assists faster than any player in club history, he also leads the NHL in helpers.
Earning a point in 10 of his last 11 games, Huberdeau, who will head to All-Star Weekend next month, has produced 22 points (five goals, 17 assists) during that run of offensive excellence.

5. BENNETT SIDELINED

The Panthers lost another key player to the injury bug prior to puck drop.
Tied for the team-lead in goals with 17, Sam Bennett was held out of tonight's game due to an upper-body injury suffered during Thursday's win at Edmonton. When asked about the status of Florida's second-line center, Brunette said the injury is considered just to be a day-to-day thing.
In terms of positive updates, Brunette also noted that Patric Hornqvist, who was injured during the first game of the road trip on Jan. 18 at Calgary, is skating and making some good progress.
Suiting up in 37 games this season, Hornqvist has posted 18 points (seven goals, 11 assists).
"He's kind of being revaluated every day," Brunette said.