Reinhart and Bobrovsky lead Florida Panthers past Ottawa Senators 5-0
OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) — Sam Reinhart scored two goals and Sergei Bobrovsky made 20 saves, helping the Florida Panthers beat the Ottawa Senators 5-0 on Monday night.
Sam Bennett had a goal and an assist for Florida, which had dropped two in a row. Carter Verhaeghe and Eetu Luostarinen also scored, and Aleksander Barkov had three assists.
Bobrovsky's second shutout of the season and No. 40 for his career helped Matthew Tkachuk get the better of his brother, Ottawa forward Brady Tkachuk.
Ottawa struggled early and never managed to get on equal footing with the Panthers. Joonas Korpisalo stopped 33 shots after missing the last two games with a minor injury.
Trailing 3-0 in the third period, the Senators started to pick up their play, but also let their emotions get the best of them.
“You know, I just thought at 3-0 we came up with some really good shifts. We were aggressive. We were, you know, in the game, lots of game left and then we take a five-minute major and that takes you right out of the game,” Senators coach D.J. Smith said.
Matthew Tkachuk clearly got under the skin of his younger brother Brady Tkachuk’s teammates. Zack MacEwen jumped Matthew Tkachuk and took a five-minute match penalty. Jake Sanderson dropped the gloves against Matthew Tkachuk as well.
“I mean, I don’t think it’s bad to play with emotion,” said Brady Tkachuk. “I think, when this group plays with emotion we’re a tough team to beat and I think we rely on our emotion and it shows that we care, shows that we care about what we’re doing here and about the guy next to us.”
Brady Tkachuk also got in the middle of things and was in the penalty box for cross-checking when Verhaeghe made it 4-0 at 11:59.
With just under seven minutes to play everyone on the ice got in a scrum and it resulted with all 10 players being assessed 10-minute misconduct penalties.
Luostarinen rounded out the scoring with 3:28 remaining.
Reinhart helped Florida get off to a fast start with two power-play goals. He got his first one just 1:28 into the game, and then made it 2-0 with his 15th of the season 5:59 into the second.
The Senators challenged Reinhart's second goal for being offside, but it remained in place after a lengthy review and Bennett made it 3-0 on the ensuing power play.
“The first few special teams put us in a good position,” said Reinhart. “We came out with a playoff mentality, trying to get our power play going a little bit.”
The win allowed the Panthers to snap a two-game losing skid as they kicked off three straight road games within the division.
“It’s good that our power play, our special teams, in the end, won us the game,” said Panthers coach Paul Maurice. “Our goaltender made a couple of saves that he had to make to keep it right. But our penalty kill was as good as our power play tonight and that won us the game.”
UP NEXT
Panthers: At Toronto on Tuesday night in the middle game of a three-game trip to eastern Canada.
Senators: At Columbus on Friday night before returning for a three-game homestand.
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AP NHL: https://www.apnews.com/hub/NHL
