"I thought the fortitude and resiliency was a really good test for us," Panthers interim head coach Andrew Brunette said. "It wasn't coming easy. We had so many different looks where pucks had gone in for us in the past, and lately they haven't been going in.
"We stayed within the game plan, within the structure with how we want to play. We didn't deviate. We didn't cheat to make it better. We stuck to the plan. I think with the grit we showed to stay in the battle, we knew it was going to turn."
With the Panthers sent to an early power play after Anton Lundell took a stick to the face from Erik Brannstrom, Mason Marchment crashed the crease, jumped on a rebound and knocked the puck straight past Anton Forsberg to give the Panthers a 1-0 lead at 10:04 of the first period.
Helping keep that lead intact, Sergei Bobrovsky made several key saves while shorthanded.
"They had a couple chances, 2-on-1's, breakaways, but he was steady," Panthers defenseman Brandon Montour said of Bobrovsky's big stops. "He's been steady all year. He's a backbone."
In the second period, the goals remained hard to come by. Not for lack of trying, the Panthers held onto the puck for nearly the entire middle frame, leading the Senators 30-9 in shot attempts - including 7-0 from high-danger areas - 12-4 in shots on goal and 18-4 in scoring chances.
But in the third period, they finally broke through.
After Patric Hornqvist cashed in on a rebound from just outside the blue paint on the power play to put the Panthers up 2-0 at 3:09, his fourth-line friend, Ryan Lomberg, added to the lead when he tapped in a rolling puck on the goal line to make it a 3-0 contest just 12 seconds later at 3:21.
Looking at Florida's goals, all three of them came on secondary chances right around the net.
"The guys that went to that area tonight we rewarded," Brunette said. "That's playoff hockey-type of goals. [The Senators] did a really good job defending around the net. They didn't give us any really easy opportunities. Going back to the resiliency, for us to hang in there was good."
Earning his second shutout of the season, Bobrovsky finished with 18 saves, while Forsberg, who was really the only thing keeping the game from being a blowout, stopped 45 of 48 shots.
Improving to 36-13-5, the Panthers have reclaimed first place in the Atlantic Division.
"If you want to be one of the top teams in the league, you can't lose three in a row at home," Hornqvist said of getting back into the win column. "We put that behind us, learned from it and I think tonight was our best 60-minute effort in a long time. We didn't give [the Senators] much."
Here are five takeaways Thursday's win in Sunrise…
