SUNRISE, Fla. – Well, you can’t win ‘em all.
But winning nine of the last 10? We'll take that.
With no puck luck to be found, the Florida Panthers saw their win streak end at nine games with a 4-1 loss to the New Jersey Devils at Amerant Bank Arena on Saturday.
“We played hard tonight, but there wasn’t a whole lot of easy,” Panthers head coach Paul Maurice said. “You have to give them credit. They closed the gaps. They were a real quick team. But I thought we saw some wear on our group a little bit tonight. I thought there was lots of will. We just couldn’t get a handle on it the way we’d like to.”
Sitting in second place in the Atlantic Division at 27-13-2, Florida’s win streak -- which began all the way back on Dec. 23 -- was the third longest in the franchise’s history.
“It was fantastic,” said Panthers goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky, who won seven games during the streak. “It was great and we beat really good teams -- really, really high skilled teams. It was good. It’s a long season. It doesn’t matter about the streaks or stuff. It’s all to prepare ourselves for the playoffs, learn our lessons and keep going.”
Breaking the ice on the road, the Devils took an early lead when a shot from Alexander Holtz from the right circle deflected off a defender’s stick and fluttered through a small hole just over Bobrovsky’s left shoulder to make it 1-0 at 3:50 of the first period.
Doubling the lead for the Devils, Michael McLeod crashed the net, pounced on a loose puck just outside the blue paint and slipped it past Bobrovsky to make it 2-0 at 14:45.
With just seconds left in the first period, the Panthers nearly cut their deficit in half, but Devils goaltender Nico Daws came up with a huge stop on Oliver Ekman-Larsson on a shot from the slot.
Daws finished with 36 saves on 37 shots.
“I think their goaltender was really, really good tonight,” Maurice said.”
Tacking on another goal for New Jersey in the second period, Erik Haula pulled up in the right circle and ripped a laser of a shot into the back of the cage to make it 3-0 at 3:51.
Despite not being able to score, Florida led 60-36 in shot attempts at 5-on-5 in the loss.
“It’s a long season,” Panthers defenseman Brandon Montour said of the seemingly unusual nature of tonight’s contest. “You’re not going to have the perfect game or the best game every night. I think we eased up a little bit tonight and obviously gave them a few chances. They capitalized on a few freaky bounces, and we couldn’t get back.”
Getting the Panthers on the board, Sam Reinhart took a between-the-legs pass from Matthew Tkachuk and fired a shot past Daws from the slot on the power play to cut the deficit to 3-1 with just 33 seconds left on the clock in the middle frame.
