Livescore
If the Edmonton Oilers are going to get some revenge on the Florida Panthers, it’s going to have to wait.
Meeting for the second time since last summer’s Stanley Cup Final, the Panthers again defeated the Oilers, this time by a 4-3 final score on Thursday night at Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise.
Florida’s second power play in the opening minutes led to what we thought was the game’s first goal, but the Carter Verhaeghe tally was taken off the scoreboard due to the Panthers being offside.
The Cats would cash in again shortly after when Uvis Balinskis walked into the left circle directly off an offensive zone drawn and beat Stuart Skinner under the glove to give Panthers a 1-0 lead.
Just over two minutes later, Oilers blueliner Brett Kulak fired a quick shot off quicker feed from Vasily Podkolzin that snuck underneath Sergei Bobrovsky to tie the game at one.
Similarly to the first period, both teams scored in fairly short order after going most of the middle frame without any goals.
First it was Anton Lundell deflecting an Aaron Ekblad point shot with his skate blade to put the Panthers back in front.
Their lead would again be short lived though, as Leon Draisaitl jumped on a neutral zone turnover before beating Bobrovsky with a sneaky backhand, sending the game to the third period deadlocked at two.
For the third time Thursday, the Panthers took a lead over Edmonton.
Once again, Lundell found himself right in the middle of the action.
Lundell carried the puck into the Oilers zone before zipping a pass to A.J. Greer as he crossed the blue line. Greer dropped the puck to Nate Schmidt before clearing a path to the net, and Schmidt did the rest with a nasty little wrist shot that went under Skinner’s glove with 8:52 to go.
Verhaeghe would get his goal back a couple minutes later on what appeared to be a harmless play.
Entering the Oilers zone with the puck and covered by Mattias Ekholm, Verhaeghe fired a wrist shot that went off Ekholm’s stick and then his body.
Skinner struggled to track the puck, which ended up right back on Verhaeghe’s stick. He quickly slid the puck across the goal line while skating past both the net and a sprawling Skinner.
Zach Hyman scored for Edmonton with 3:25 to go and Skinner on their bench, drawing the game back within one and setting up for an exciting finish.
That would be as close as it would get.
Florida held on down the stretch, with Gus Forsling drawing a penalty on Cory Perry in the final seconds to seal the win.
On to Calgary.
QUICK THOUGHTS
Florida has had goals taken away by review in three consecutive games. The previous two had been for goalie interference while this one was for the play being offside.
Verhaeghe will finish February with five goals in eight games.
Lundell meanwhile has racked up seven points during eight games this month.
Also on a nice run is Ekblad. He’s logged nine points over his past 11 games.
Schmidt’s goal was his third point in six games.
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