RECAP: Panthers 5, Blue Jackets 2

COLUMBUS – The Florida Panthers packed their momentum for this trip.

After ending their homestand with two straight wins, they kicked off their five-game road swing with a 5-2 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets at Nationwide Arena on Sunday.

With the win, the Panthers now sit at 17-8-2 in the standings.

“It’s great for the morale,” said goaltender Anthony Stolarz, who made 17 saves in the win. “Now we go across the country to Seattle, so it’ll be a happy flight. We’re not done.”

Just 1:02 into the first period, the Panthers broke the ice when Gustav Forsling took a pass from Aleksander Barkov and fired a shot past rookie goaltender Jet Greaves from the left circle to make it a 1-0 game before most fans were even settled in.

Briefly evening the score for Columbus, Yegor Chinakhov beat Stolarz with a blocker-side snipe from the high slot to make it 1-1 at 7:06. But just 22 seconds later, Carter Verhaeghe tipped in a shot from Sam Reinhart to put Florida on top 2-1 at 7:28.

With the goal, Verhaeghe earned the 200^th point of his NHL career.

“It’s pretty cool,” said Verhaeghe, who ranks second on the team with 13 goals and has also lit the lamp in four of the last five games. “You don’t even know if you’re going to get to the NHL. It’s awesome to put up 200 points. I just want to keep going."

After an eventful opening 20 minutes, the red light stayed off during the second period. That being said, the Panthers likely deserved a goal. Racking up 11 scoring chances in the period, they came up empty against Graves despite producing 1.24 expected goals.

Just 24 seconds into the third period, things got heated when Nick Cousins delivered a hit on Erik Gudbranson along the end boards. After hitting the ice, Gudbranson popped right back up and went after Cousins. From there, every player on the ice got involved.

Cousins was initially assessed a major penalty, but it was reduced to a minor after a review.

Incredibly effective on the penalty kill for more than a month, the Panthers blocked two shots and didn’t surrender a single shot on goal on the ensuing power play for the Blue Jackets. On a second penalty kill soon after, they kept Columbus off the board again.

On that second kill, Stolarz showed off his glove with a huge save on Kirill Marchenko.

"The last few games, our penalty kill has been tremendous," Stolarz said. "Guys have been working as a cohesive unit."

Stemming from the earlier incident with Cousins, Gudbranson lost his cool later in the period and tackled the Panthers forward to the ice before proceeding to punch him in the back of the head repeatedly while he was down in a defenseless position.

After being looked at by a trainer, Cousins stayed in the game.

As for Gudbranson, the Blue Jackets defenseman was slapped with two minutes for instigating, five minutes for fighting, a 10-minute misconduct and a game misconduct.

With 37 seconds left on the seven-minute power play they earned from the incident, the Panthers extended their lead when Barkov swept a rebound into the back of the cage to make it 3-1 at 13:12 and push his goal-scoring streak to three games.

On the play, Sam Bennett dove into traffic to poke the puck over to Barkov.

After the Blue Jackets briefly cut their deficit down to 3-2 with a goal from Dmitri Voronkov at 16:11, Matthew Tkachuk locked in the win for the Panthers when he buried a long empty-net goal to make it 4-2 at 18:05.

With 1:01 left on the clock, Eetu Luostarinen added one more empty-netter to make it 5-2.

“They played hard,” head coach Paul Maurice said of the Blue Jackets. “I thought we had the better of the offense, but it was a bit of a grinder. It was difficult for both teams to finish on some of the opportunities they had. Goalies made some good saves. Kind of a road game for us. I think we were pretty darn consistent.”

In the win, Reinhart led the Panthers with four points.

“He’s so detailed with everything he does,” Verhaeghe said of Reinhart, who leads the team in goals (17) and points (37). “He makes awesome passes and he scores. He’s a complete player and one of the best players on our team. You see it night in, night out.”

THEY SAID IT

“I thought he was really, really good. Those games are tough, especially for backup guys because they get in and they don’t get a lot of work. They had shot attempts, but they didn’t have a lot of pucks that got to the net today. … That five-minute block in the third period is where he did his part to help win the game.” – Paul Maurice on Anthony Stolarz’s performance

“We tried to stay with it. It’s hard with all the power plays there, but I thought we did a good job and sealed the deal.” – Gustav Forsling on the third period

“Any time you can go on the road and get that first win, it gets the morale going and gets everyone happy. We want to take that momentum and keep moving forward. We’ve got four more games against four tough teams.” – Anthony Stolarz on starting the road trip off on the right foot

CATS STATS

- Sam Reinhart is tied for first in the NHL with 13 multi-point games.

- Brandon Montour fired off a team-high six shots on goal.

- The Panther led 30-25 in scoring chances at 5-on-5.

- Anthony Stolarz made four high-danger saves, per NaturalStatTrick.com.

- Aleksander Barkov led the Panthers with four blocked shots.

WHAT’S NEXT?

This road trip is only just getting started.

With eight more points up for grabs before heading home, the Cats will look to keep on rolling when they visit the Seattle Kraken at Climate Pledge Arena on Tuesday at 10 p.m. ET.