Thursday, March 29, 2018

Panthers Edged By Senators

     The Florida Panthers played in Ottawa for the second time in over a week and lost to the Senators 3-2 in overtime at Canadian Tire Centre. It was the third game of a four-game trip for the Cats.
     The Panthers remained behind the New Jersey Deivls by three points for the second wild-card playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. Henrik Borgstrom made his NHL debut with the Panthers.
     After no scoring in the first, Ottawa(27-39-11) drew first blood at 1:24 of the second period. Jean-Gabriel Pageau put in a tally on assists from Mike Hoffman and Tom Pyatt.
     Florida(39-29-8) would gain momentum as they scored twice in a 1:31 span. Jared McCann dropped a pass back to Aaron Ekblad in the left circle. He angled to the right circle and snapped a shot from the top right circle by Craig Anderson on the power play at the 5:19 mark. It was a career-best 16th goal of the campaign for Ekblad.
     The Cats took their first lead 2-1 at 6:50. MacKenzie Weegar fed a pass from the right wing across to Evgenii Dadnov and he scored on a wrist shot from the high slot for his 26th goal of the season. He was able to extend his goal streak to three games.
     The Sens once again scored early for the second straight frame. Zack Smith placed a shot on goal and Magnus Paajarvi deflected it in past James Reimer 16 seconds into the third period to make it 2-2.
     It looked like the contest would go into a shootout until Michael Matheson tripped up Pageau as he approached the Panthers cage with 12.4 seconds left. Pageau was awarded a penalty shot and he converted on it with a forehand shot for his second goal of the game.

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