Panthers Drill Oilers

     The Florida Panthers returned home and stopped the Edmonton Oilers 4-1 at BB&T Center on Thursday night. The Cats won their second straight contest for the first time this season. It was the first home game for the Panthers in Sunrise since October 20.
     The Panthers had played their previous two games at Helsinki, Finland against the Winnipeg Jets in the NHL Global Series. The Oilers lost their last three games of the four-game road trip.
     After no scoring in the first period, Florida(4-5-3) made it 1-0 at 6:45 of the second. Mike Hoffman was in the slot area, dropped the puck to Aleksander Barkov and he steered it ahead to Evgenii Dadonov in the crease. He approached the net, jumped around Cam Talbot and place the puck into the cage.
     The Panthers extended it to 2-0 at the 9:12 mark. Nick Bjugstad backhanded the puck from the top of the zone to Bogdan Kiselevich on the left wing. His wrist shot went off the hip of Kevin Gravel then Bjugstad marched in and scored on a snap shot.
     In the third period, Edmonton(8-7-1) got on the scoreboard 23 seconds in. Connor McDavid carried the puck down the right wing to the right-circle dot. He backhanded a cross-ice pass and Leon Draisaitl put in a one-time shot from the low slot by Roberto Luongo.
     Florida regained a two-goal margin on the power play at 3:43. Keith Yandle make a pass from the top of the zone to Vincent Trocheck on the right wing. He connected a cross-ice pass to Jonathan Huberdeau and he blasted in a slapshot for the tally. Colton Sceviour added an empty-net goal on a backhand shot from the red line with 48.2 seconds remaining.