"We've come back a lot this year," Panthers coach Joel Quenneville said. "Playing from behind, I still don't think we change the way we have to play to be successful."
In his return to Sunrise, Vincent Trocheck, who was shipped from Florida to Carolina in a multi-player deal at last year's trade deadline, opened the scoring for the Hurricanes tonight when he tipped a shot past Sergei Bobrovsky on the power play to make it 1-0 at 17:38 of the first period.
Oddly enough, the goal came just moments after Trocheck's tribute video aired in the arena.
Leading everywhere except the scoreboard, Florida fired off a flurry of chances at the net, but simply couldn't catch a break in the opening 20 minutes. Heading into the first intermission, they led Carolina in shots on goal (12-7), shot attempts (17-6) and scoring chances (6-3) at 5-on-5.
"I liked our first," Quenneville said. "I thought we did a lot of good things."
With neither goaltender giving anything, the second period was dominated by Bobrovsky and James Reimer, who both had clean sheets during the middle frame. Helping keep the deficit at a manageable 1-0, Bobrovsky's best save of the period actually came while on the power play.
Flying straight down the center of the ice on a shorthanded breakaway just past the midway point of the period, Brock McGinn made a quick pump fake before attempting to score off his backhand, but was robbed of a goal by Bobrovsky, who sprawled out to make the epic save.
Bobrovsky finished the game with 30 saves, while Reimer had 28 of his own.
"He made some key saves, especially that sequence shorthanded," Quenneville said. "I thought he was challenging. I thought he was on top of the crease. I thought positionally he was doing everything he has to do. It was a good point for us. Bob got it to overtime and helped us."
Capitalizing on the man advantage once again, the Hurricanes doubled their lead to 2-0 when rookie Jake Bean took a pass from Martin Necas and let loose a wrist long shot through some heavy traffic and past Bobrovsky for the first goal of his NHL career 1:30 into the third period.
Not going down without a fight, the "Comeback Cats" made their move after that.
Finally solving Reimer and getting the Panthers on the board, Jonathan Huberdeau poked in a puck on the power play at 8:13 to cut the deficit to 2-1. Exactly two minutes later, Frank Vatrano then tied the game 2-2 when he took a sweet dish from Mason Marchment and scored up close.
"You get the second goal, and it's like, 'OK, let's get excited about this,'" Quenneville said. "Let's go. We had lots of time. It's still a positive. We chipped away and got a lot of momentum back."
At 14:05, Warren Foegele then briefly recaptured the lead for the Hurricanes when he tipped a shot past Bobrovsky to make it 3-2. But, answering right back for the Panthers, Patric Hornqvist then lit the lamp from right around the blue paint to tie the game 3-3 with 1:54 left in regulation.
Following a scoreless overtime, Necas scored in the shootout to lift the Hurricanes to a 4-3 win.
"We were fortunate to get the point," Quenneville said. "We came back twice in that third to tie it up. Overtime's going to happen… Anything can happen in shootouts as well. At the end of the night, you look at the last game and this night, and we'll take points in these games."
Despite the loss, tonight's crucial point helped the Panthers (13-4-3) stay tied with the Lightning (14-4-1) for the most points in the Central Division with 29. Not far behind, the Hurricanes (13-6-1), who snapped a three-game losing skid, are currently holding onto third place with 27 points.
Here are five takeaways from Saturday's shootout loss in Sunrise…
