Cats gain on Islanders in wild card race
The Florida Panthers rallied back from a two-goal third period deficit to earn a point before losing 5-4 to the Winnipeg Jets when Mark Scheifele scored his second goal of the game with 29 seconds left in overtime.
After tying the tilt in the final frame with their third power-play goal of the night at the 6:24 mark, that Florida couldn’t up with the winner over the final 18:07 of game play was disappointing, but they did manage to pull within three points of the New York Islanders, who lost 5-1 on home ice to the Washington Capitals, in the wild card race and still hold a game in hand.
The Panthers will get four days off before taking on the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday. Sergei Bobrovsky, who stopped 22 shots, needs the rest and maybe the Cats can spend some time working on their penalty killing. Winnipeg went 2 for 3 with the man advantage.
As mentioned above Scheifele scored twice for the Jets, as did recently acquired Vladislav Namestnikov. Each of those players notched a power-play goal and Namestnikov added an assist. Nikolaj Ehlers put up a goal and an assist and Kyle Connor finished with three helpers.
Matthew Tkachuk scored Florida’s first and final makers, both on the power-play rebounds, to reach the 30-goal plateau in his first season with the club. Tkachuk also drew an assist on Sam Reinhart power-play goal in the second period. Reinhart had a hand in Marc Staal’s third of the season, off a 4-on-2 rush, which cut Winnipeg’s lead to 4-3 just 33 seconds into the third.
Aleksander Barkov and Brandon Montour each collected two assists and Carter Verhaeghe and Eric Staal had one helper apiece.
Pitch & Yaw
- First Star Mark Scheifele now has 13 career overtime goals, the most in Jets 2.0/Atlanta Thrashers history. His 41st career game-winning goal also tied Blake Wheeler for second in franchise history, one behind Kyle Connor.
- Matthew Tkachuk collected three points in each game of the back-to-back. He has 29 multipoint games this season, trailing only Connor McDavid (37) for the most in the league. Tkachuk ended a seven-game goal drought and had a game-high nine shots.
- Connor Hellebuyck stopped 44 of 48 Florida shots to backstop his club to the win which put Winnipeg (WC2 in the west) six points points ahead of chasing Nashvile and Calgary.
- Alesksander Barkov has built a four-game point streak since returning to the lineup on March 4 after missing three games with a hand injury.
- Valdislav Namestnikov, who was moved twice during deadline week, has two goals and five points in four games with the Jets. Nice pick-up (for a 4th-rounder) by GM Kevin Cheveldayoff.
- The Cats got swept by Winnipeg this season. Read more about it at Arctic Ice Hockey.
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