The road has not been overly kind to the Carolina Hurricanes this season — which has been a problem since 10 of the team’s first 16 games have been away from Raleigh.
In the first meeting of the season between last year’s Eastern Conference finalists, the Florida Panthers responded quickly to an early Canes goal and never trailed again, skating off with a 5-2 win over Carolina at Amerant Bank Arena on Friday.
Five different skaters scored for the Panthers, who got a typically solid night of work from all-world goalie Sergei Bobrovsky. “Bob” stopped 28 of 30 shots in the win.
In a rare occurrence, the Panthers actually outshot the Hurricanes, 35-30. Antti Raanta faced 34 of those shots, and stopped 30. Jesperi Kotkaniemi and Sebastian Aho had the goals for Carolina.
Kotkaniemi got the Canes on the board just 1:20 into the game on a snap shot, giving the road team a quick advantage, but as quickly as Carolina struck, the Panthers replied. Matthew Tkachuk, a thorn in the Hurricanes’ side in last season’s Eastern Conference Final series, netted his third of the year at 3:01 of the first to even things up at 1-1.
Late in the first, after a prolonged period of Hurricanes offensive-zone pressure, the Panthers countered and went ahead 2-1 when Uvis Balinskis finished a quick-strike 2-on-1 down low at the left post.
The Panthers extended their lead at 7:08 of the second when Aleksander Barkov finished a rebound at the left post on a shot from the opposite corner by Evan Rodrigues. The Canes drew back within one later in the second on Aho’s third of the season, but that’s as close as they’d get.
The Panthers extended their lead with another counter-attack goal at 13:18 of the third from Carter Verhaeghe, and Kevin Stenlund capped the scoring with an empty-netter in the final two minutes.
There was no rest for the weary as the Canes traveled across the Florida peninsula to face the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday.
Christine Lake is a sports fanatic who lives and breathes athletics. With an extensive background in sports journalism, he covers everything from major league championships to grassroots sports events. When she’s not on the field or at the stadium, you’ll find Christine coaching youth sports teams.
