Carter Verhaeghe’s three-point night helped the Florida Panthers snap their four-game losing streak with a 5-1 win, cooling off the visiting Toronto Maple Leafs on Wednesday night in Sunrise.
Verhaeghe finished with a goal and two assists and Sam Reinhart scored his league-leading 17th goal of the season. Aleksander Barkov and Sam Bennett each had a goal and an assist and Mackie Samoskevich also scored for Florida, while Sergei Bobrovsky made 23 saves.
The Panthers played without center Anton Lundell, who was hit in the face with a puck on Monday against Washington.
Before the Leafs’ morning skate on Wednesday, the Panthers awarded Stanley Cup rings to three former Florida players now with Toronto: Anthony Stolarz, Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Steven Lorentz.
Stolarz made 19 saves for the Leafs, who had their four-game win streak halted. Mitch Marner scored and leads Toronto with 29 points, including nine points (five goals, four assists) in his last five games.
The Leafs played their ninth straight game without superstar Auston Matthews (upper-body injury). Toronto is 7-2-0 without Matthews, who has led the NHL in goals in three of the past four seasons.
Florida netted the only two goals of the first period, scoring 50 seconds apart.
Barkov scored a one-timer, power-play goal from the right circle off a pass from Aaron Ekblad.
Less than a minute later, the Panthers scored on a rebound by Samoskevich. Eetu Luostarinen got the primary assist.
Each team scored once in the second period.
Florida found the back of the net on a shorthanded rush as Barkov stole the puck and dropped it back to Reinhart, who beat Stolarz to the blocker side from the high slot.
Toronto got on the board 87 seconds later on Marner’s power-play goal.
But Verhaeghe roofed a shot for a power-play tally with 5:23 left in the third, giving Florida 4-1 lead.
Bennett added an empty-netter with 1:28 left to ice the game.
–Field Level Media
