"I think we've been pretty hot all year, honestly," Panthers defenseman MacKenzie Weegar said when asked about the team's outstanding stretch of success. "We just try to build up our game every night. That's pretty much been the message going down the stretch here -- just keep building our game, the right habits, and then it'll lead to success in the playoffs at the right time."
Already bound for the postseason, the Panthers, who are sitting pretty at 56-15-6, also locked up the top spot in the Atlantic Division and the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference by virtue of the Lightning beating the Maple Leafs by a score of 8-1 on the other side of the Sunshine State.
With five games left, Florida also leads Colorado by two points for the Presidents' Trophy.
"Proud of the group," Panthers interim head coach Andrew Brunette said. "It's been a heck of a year. To [win the division] would be a big bonus. It's probably not over yet, but, again, with all these little things we just want to keep going, keep building. We've got another game Saturday."
Jumping out to an early lead on the road, Sam Gagner opened the scoring when he beat Sergei Bobrovsky with a wrist shot from the slot to put the Red Wings up 1-0 at 4:08 of the first period.
Making an immediate impact in his return to the lineup, Noel Acciari, who had been out since March 29 with an injury, pulled the Panthers even when he dropped to one knee and one-timed a pass from Brandon Montour past Alex Nedeljkovic and into the cage to make it 1-1 at 9:19.
Riding that momentum, the Panthers doubled their lead on the power play when Aleksander Barkov, who's been carrying a piping hot stick in recent games, collected a pass from Anthony Duclair, skated down into the high slot and ripped a shot into the twine to make it 2-1 at 18:53.
Just 46 seconds after that, Mason Marchment scored to increase the lead to 3-1 at 19:39.
"You don't have too many times in your career or in your life that you can be on a team like this," Brunette said. "We're a long, long way to getting to be where we want to be, but [the players] love playing with each other, and they love to compete together. Those are all fun signs."
Cutting into the deficit for Detroit, Tyler Bertuzzi carried the puck into the offensive zone and let loose a powerful no-look shot from just inside the top of the right circle that just managed to clip off Bobrovsky's shoulder before sailing into the cage to make it 3-2 at 6:15 of the second period.
Stomping out that would-be comeback attempt, the Panthers answered later in that period when Weegar flew down from the blue line and hammered a pinpoint centering pass from Marchment past Nedeljkovic from the slot to bring fans in the building to their feet and make it 4-2 at 16:05.
Earning a five-minute power play early in the third period after Oskar Sundqvist was whistled for a dangerous two-handed slash, the Panthers padded their lead further when Sam Bennett sent a pass to Sam Reinhart for a tap-in goal from on top of the blue paint to make it 5-2 at 3:50.
Pocketing his second assist of the game on Reinhart's goal, Jonathan Huberdeau moved into a tie with Edmonton's Connor McDavid for the NHL scoring lead with an eye-popping 113 points.
Between the pipes, Bobrovsky stopped 28 of 30 shots for the Panthers to improve to 12-0-0 over his last 12 decisions, while Nedeljkovic gave up five goals on 27 shots for the Red Wings.
Preparing to enter the playoffs as the top-seeded team in the Eastern Conference for the first time in their history, the Cats have also claimed their third division title and first since 2015-16.
"We put a lot of hard work into this season, and locking up the division is a big accomplishment for us," Weegar said. "But there's obviously the bigger picture here. We'll enjoy that, locking up the division and home-ice advantage for the playoffs, but other than that we're just trying to build our game and have fun while we're doing it."
Here are five takeaways from Thursday's win in Sunrise…
