Florida Panthers Survive After Blowing Three-Goal Lead to Philadelphia Flyers

The Florida Panthers blew two separate multi-goal leads to the Philadelphia Flyers, but dug in and found a way to win.

The Florida Panthers got away with another uncharacteristic effort in a 7-5 thriller against the Philadelphia Flyers.

After watching a 3-0 lead vanish in the second period, Florida rallied from behind in the third period to thwart Philadelphia’s massive comeback and earn a point in its fifth consecutive game.

Gustav Forsling tied the game up with 5:17 to go, then Sam Reinhart came through with the game-winner via a one-timer on the power play with 1:59 to go.

“We hope that’s unique,” coach Paul Maurice said. “We wouldn’t want to see that ever again, but I think we kind of got what we deserved in that middle period. We had 3-0 and 4-2 leads and then we were just… not every good.

“So, what was important is finding a way. You can’t do anything about the past when it’s halfway through the third.”

‘Unique’ is one way to describe how this game went for the Panthers.

In the first period, Florida looked like its true, dominant self.

They soared off to a two-goal lead too end the first period, padding it with an Aleksander Barkov goal three minutes into the second period. They were forechecking hard, they weren’t giving up too many chances and they had a full handle on the game.

Then they lightened up a bit — and Philadelphia took full advantage of it.

The Flyers found the first crack in the Panthers’ armor 7:13 into the frame on the power play. Matvei Michkov threaded a seamless pass through traffic over to Joel Farabee, who then sent a cross-crease feed to Tyson Foerster. He took it and beat Knight with a backhand shot to put Philadelphia on the board.

Nick Seeler brought Philadelphia back within a goal just over two minutes later, reading a sloppy exchange between Nate Schmidt and Eetu Luostarinen to a tee, picking it up and wiring home a shot from the circle to make it 3-2.

Florida restored its two-goal lead with a power play marker from Carter Verhaeghe with 6:25 to go in the second, but that was short-lived.

Ex-Panther Owen Tippett single-handedly got Philadelphia back into the game (again) late in the period.

Michkov picked Aaron Ekblald’s pocket after he lost a hold of the puck in his own end and immediately sent it to Tippett, who wired a snap shot past Knight to make it 4-2. On that same shift, Tippett burst onto the rush after a Tomas Nosek breakaway attempt was stopped by Aleksei Kolosov, then maneuvered around Nate Schmidt with a toe drag and beat Knight with a shot that just trickled past him to tie the game.

The Panthers knew they did not play to their standards in the second period — and they didn’t need Maurice to bark at them to get them going.

“There wouldn’t have been anything but vile, evil thoughts and words,” he said of his decision. “Sometimes, you just need to shut up and not go into the room. I thought that was a perfect time for that. Yeah. Say nothing sometimes. So, I did that.

Albeit, it took a bit of time in the third period to get that done.

Garnet Hathaway gave the Flyers the lead 5:39 into the third period, jamming home a loose puck past a downed Knight with a slew of bodies in the crease. Knight appeared to take some contact from Philadelphia forward Scott Laughton on the play, but Maurice opted not to challenge it. Sam Bennett could have initiated that contact, for one, and it also was not enough contact to get that goal called back.

Either way, the Panthers had to dig in, and they got some life from a Forsling shot from the point with 5:17 to go after a penalty kill quickly turned into a 4-on-4 after Luostarinen drew an interference penalty from Bobby Brink.

Florida got its chance on the power play with 2:28 to go after Farabee took a shot at Bennett with a cross-check and Philadelphia paid for that one.

The Panthers and their red-hot power play scores their fourth power play goal of the night to take the lead.

Matthew Tkachuk sealed the game away with an empty-net goal with 11 seconds to go to grab Florida its fourth win in its past five games.

“I think you’re probably thinking that you’re going to have a chance to tie the game on the power play at the end, so the bench got a little excited about that,” Maurice said. “Then Gustav sifts one through. We had a run of about 15 or 16 posts in run of a four-to-five games. And then you get a break like that, and then the power play is wired — it’s been great.

“We don’t like winning games on the power play. We did tonight. And then there’s some things that we clearly have to work on.”

They got the win, but everyone in that locker room knows that this style of play is not sustainable if they want to repeat as Stanley Cup champions.

“We know we have firepower, but we know that if we play like we did tonight, it’s not the type of game that wins you games at the end of the season or in the playoffs,” Tkachuk said. “We have to change that.

“The one positive was that we were able to put in a few. We just really need to buckle down defensively and we’ll get as much as we want.”

There were a lot of glaring issues in that game.

Knight allowed five goals on 34 shots in his second consecutive dud, but the combination of turnovers and quality chances allowed in front of him did not do him any favors.

The Panthers have also struggled with keeping its energy level up against opponents on the outside looking in. And they need that energy in order to sustain the heavy forecheck that they pride themselves on.

Florida will get a chance to put that to the test on Saturday night against a San Jose Sharks team that is in the doldrums of the Western Conference.

For now, they hold a share of first place in the Atlantic Division, tied with the Toronto Maple Leafs at 34 points. But they will need to figure out a way to win games in a less sloppy fashion in order to sustain that.