Panthers rounding into form ahead of playoffs, overcome early deficit to beat Red Wings

Jordan McPherson, Miami Herald on Apr 10, 2025

Published in Hockey

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SUNRISE, Fla. — The Florida Panthers need a lot to go their way over this next week for their outside chance of opening the Stanley Cup playoffs on home ice to become a reality.

They did their part on Thursday, overcoming an early deficit to beat the Detroit Red Wings, 3-1, at Amerant Bank Arena.

Florida is now 46-29-4, its 96 points one shy of the Tampa Bay Lightning (45-26-7, 97 points). The Panthers have three games left on their schedule — Saturday against the Buffalo Sabres, Monday against the New York Rangers and Tuesday at the Lightning — while Tampa Bay has four left to play. Florida would need to finish the season with more points than Tampa Bay to get second place in the Atlantic Division, which would give them home-ice advantage for the opening round of the playoffs.

On Thursday, the Panthers got goals from Evan Rodrigues, Mackie Samoskevich and Brad Marchand as part of a three-goal second period to give them a lead they wouldn’t relinquish. It erased Detroit’s early 1-0 lead that came when Alex DeBrincat beat Sergei Bobrovsky from the slot 6:13 into regulation. Bobrovsky stopped 23 of 24 shots he faced to improve to 33-18-2, including 15-7-0 since Jan. 21.

Aleksander Barkov added a goal in the third period. Defensemen Gustav Forsling and Uvis Balinskis each had two assists.

This and that

— The Panthers scored four goals in a non-shootout game for the first time since March 8 against Buffalo, snapping a run of 14 consecutive games scoring three goals or fewer (there is a 4-3 shootout win over Pittsburgh on March 23 mixed in there).

— According to NHL Stats, Barkov is the third Finnish player in NHL history to record 10 career 20-goal seasons, joining Teemu Selanne (17) and Jari Kurri (13).

— With 15 goals and 16 assists, Samoskevich is the sixth player in Panthers history to have at least 15 goals and 15 assists in his rookie season.