Panthers Get Rocked in Buffalo Without Barkov, Tkachuk

The Florida Panthers lost 5-2 to the Buffalo Sabres in their first game without both Aleksander Barkov and Matthew Tkachuk since assembling the duo in 2022.

The Florida Panthers played their first game without both Aleksander Barkov and Matthew Tkachuk since they made the blockbuster deal to acquire the star winger in 2022 — and it went exactly as one would expect.

Although the Panthers put up a valiant effort early on, the wheels fell off late in the first period and the Buffalo Sabres defeated them 5-2 on Saturday night to hand them their second loss of the second.

Buffalo scored two goals in a 41-second span near the end of the second period and ran away with the game from there.

The Panthers started off strong, with Nate Schmidt getting them on the board 9:01 into the game with a nice tic-tac-toe play on the rush started by Mackie Samoskevich and finished by a nice pass from A.J. Greer to find Schmidt in the slot.

And they appeared to continue to be going well when Florida killed off Buffalo’s first power play without giving up a shot with 3:41 to go in the first period, in part due to Greer and Jesper Boqvist stepping up big-time to fill in for the injured Barkov and Sam Reinhart, who took on an increased workload elsewhere.

But things swung pretty quickly after that.

The puck went bouncing near the front of the Florida net and Jordan Greenway picked it up and roofed it off the bar to beat Spencer Knight and tie the game just 27 seconds later.

Tage Thompson burst onto the rush and beat Knight five-hole shortly after that to give Buffalo a 2-1 lead with 2:33 to go in the first period.

In a 1:06 span, the wheels started to fall off for the Panthers.

Henri Jokiharju potted home a rebound with chaos ensuing in front of the Panthers net 1:34 into the second period to extend the Sabres lead to 3-1.

After the Panthers spent a large majority of the second period pinned in their own end, Mattias Samuelsson caught Knight without his stick after another round of chaos ensued in front of his goal crease and beat him with a shot from the top of the slot, seemingly undetected by any Florida defenders, to make it a three-goal game with 3:38 to go in the middle frame.

Sam Bennett deflected a Sam Reinhart shot on the power play past Devon Levi to cut Buffalo’s lead to two goals with 1:18 to go in the second period.

The Panthers managed just two shots on goal in the third period before pulling Knight for the extra attacker with 3:03 to go and could not muster up a comeback attempt afterward.

Alex Tuch tucked home the empty-netter with 1:12 to go to seal the win for the Sabres

Knight finished the game with 22 saves on 26 shots in his first NHL game since Feb. 18, 2022.

Florida falls to 1-2-0 on the season, but should expect Tkachuk back from illness in short order (possibly on Monday against the Boston Bruins) and Barkov due to return from his lower-body injury in 2-3 weeks.

And, oh, the Panthers started the season 1-2-0 last year before going on to win the Stanley Cup.