RECAP: Panthers 5, Oilers 1

EDMONTON – After being shut out in each of their last two games, the floodgates finally opened for the Florida Panthers in a 5-1 win over the Edmonton Oilers at Rogers Place on Saturday.

Sam Bennett and Carter Verhaeghe led Florida with three points each, while Sergei Bobrovsky was a brick wall between the pipes, finishing with 38 saves on 39 shots.

“It was nice to get the win,” Verhaeghe said of the team’s bounce back. “We believe in ourselves. It sucks when you get shut out, but we came back with a nice win.”

Coming up in the clutch early in the first period, Bobrovsky sprawled out to rob Ryan Nugent-Hopkins on a rebound shot from the slot to keep the Oilers off the board.

Not long after that save, the Panthers took that momentum and turned into a goal when Bennett set up Verhaeghe for a snipe from the slot to make it 1-0 at 5:33.

After coming up empty the last two games, the goal let players finally exhale.

“Sometimes you play a good game and you don’t get rewarded and sometimes you do,” Verhaeghe said. “That’s the game of hockey. It’s always a better feeling when you get rewarded.”

Netting his first goal of the season, Brandon Montour, who missed the first 16 games of the campaign after undergoing offseason surgery for an upper-body injury, doubled the lead to 2-0 when he slipped down from the blue line and buried a one-timer at 18:58.

Adding one more goal before the first intermission, the Panthers extended their lead to 3-0 in the blink of an eye when captain Aleksander Barkov backhanded a rebound past Calvin Pickard from just outside the blue paint with 33 seconds left on the clock.

“We knew they were going to come out hard,” said Montour, who later added an assist for a multi-point game. “They usually do, especially in this building. We wanted to match that. It was good to get a few [goals] early and keep rolling from there.”

Finishing off a slick passing sequence, the Oilers got on the board when Zach Hyman took a dish from Nugent-Hopkins, made a nifty little move and tucked a backhand shot around Bobrovsky to cut Florida’s lead down to 3-1 at 8:08 of the second period.

Moments after surviving some chaos in his crease, Bobrovsky turned cheers into silence when he stoned Mattias Ekholm on a breakaway to keep Edmonton from gaining steam.

At 15:01, the Panthers had a scary moment when Evan Rodrigues was hit in the face by a high stick. Immediately after the incident occurred, he grabbed his face and skated toward the bench to meet a trainer and head right to the locker room.

Thankfully, Rodrigues later returned to the game.

On the ensuing power play from the aforementioned high stick, the Panthers padded their lead when Bennett flew into the offensive zone, cut to the net and deftly slipped the puck just around Pickard’s outstretched left pad to make it 4-1 at 16:01.

Kicking off the play in the defensive zone, Bobrovsky earned his 11^th career assist.

“It was a dangerous opponent,” Bobrovsky said. “It’s fun. It’s fun to play those games against those really good offensive teams. I was involved in the game, and it was fun.”

Not letting the Oilers get any ideas about potentially mounting a comeback, the Panthers upped their lead to a commanding 5-1 just 21 seconds into the third period when Verhaeghe hit the brakes and then scored with a snipe from the right circle.

His fifth goal this month, Verhaeghe ranks second on Florida with 15 goals.

“It’s how fast he gets it off his stick,” Panthers head coach Paul Maurice said. “The play looked like it was dead. The fifth goal, right? It’s over. But then, he’s gifted.”

After being slashed on a breakaway, Sam Gagner had a chance to give the Oilers a boost, but was denied on his penalty shot with yet another big stop from Bobrovsky.

Per NaturalStatTrick.com, Bobrovsky finished with eight high-danger saves.

If you’re going off the eye test, it felt like he had even more than that.

“He’s such a good goalie,” Verhaeghe said. “One of the best in the world.”

Improving to 2-2-0 on their road trip and 18-10-2 overall, the Panthers now have a chance to end their longest trek of the season on a high note on Monday in Calgary.

Even without Anton Lundell (illness), Jonah Gadjovich (illness) and Aaron Ekblad (lower body) against the Oilers, the Panthers just continue to smile in the face of adversity.

“We came out of dealing with some challenging parts to our game and got ourselves a push,” Maurice said. “I don’t think we’re going to call it a world-class trip, but if we can get a win it’d be a good one. That’s what we’re shooting for.”

THEY SAID IT

“You’re not beating these guys on home ice unless you get a goaltending performance like that. He was quick. As dynamic and as explosive as he was, he was also incredibly calm. You could feel it from the bench that he wasn’t getting beat tonight.” – Paul Maurice on Sergei Bobrovsky

“Those moments in the beginning of the game, they are so important. Who is going to score first and take the advantage? You obviously want to play with the lead.” – Sergei Bobrovsky on the Panthers breaking the ice in Edmonton

“We’re a resilient team, and I think we came out the right way. It was nice to get the first couple goals of the game and set ourselves off on the right foot. It was nice to get the win.” – Carter Verhaeghe on the Panthers bouncing back

CATS STATS

- Niko Mikkola skated in his 200^th NHL game.

- Florida led 15-6 in scoring chances in the first period.

- Dating back to last season, the Cats rank fifth in the NHL in first-period goals (116).

- Carter Verhaeghe recorded his first multi-goal game of the season.

- Brandon Montour is now tied with Ed Jovanovski for the second-most game-winning goals by a defenseman in franchise history with seven.

- Dmitry Kulikov notched a team-leading four hits.

- Aleksander Barkov fired off a team-high seven shots on goal.

- The Panthers have yet to lose three games in a row this season.

WHAT’S NEXT?

The Panthers will close out their season-long, five-game road trip with a matchup against the Calgary Flames at Scotiabank Saddledome on Monday at 9:30 p.m. ET.