Spencer Knight made 40 saves for his first shutout of the season as the Florida Panthers defeated the Carolina Hurricanes 3-0 on Wednesday in Sunrise, Fla.
It was Knight’s third career shutout in 42 games over parts of three NHL seasons. The 40 stops were a season-high for the 21-year-old goalie, and when Carolina pushed back in the third period, Knight was particularly sharp, stopping 18 shots in the final stanza.
Nick Cousins, Aleksander Barkov and Sam Bennett scored for Florida, which has won back-to-back games despite missing Matthew Tkachuk because of a suspension.
Antti Raanta made 33 saves for Carolina, which lost its second straight game. Raanta was filling in for Frederik Andersen, who was injured in practice on Tuesday.
Cousins scored on a rebound in the first period to give Florida a 1-0 lead at the 9:21 mark. Cousins initially deflected Brandon Montour’s point shot, which took a big hop off Raanta’s right pad to the Panthers forward, who scored past the sprawling goalie.
Barkov doubled Florida’s lead at 10:20 of the third period on the power play. Barkov finished a rush chance with Carter Verhaeghe, who slid a pass to the Panthers captain for his third goal of the season, beating Raanta on the stick side.
Bennett scored an empty-net goal with six seconds remaining to make it 3-0.
Raanta did everything in his power to keep Carolina in the game. The Hurricanes goalie made a handful of stops on breakaways and rushes, including early in the third period when Carolina was still down only 1-0.
For the 11th time in their NHL careers, and first time since 2016, brothers Eric, Jordan, and Marc Staal played in the same game. Jordan is the Hurricanes captain, while Eric and Marc both play for Florida.
Eric Staal, the eldest brother, was playing his 1,300th career NHL game. He became the 64th player in NHL history and only active player to reach that milestone.
–Field Level Media
