Filled with the energy of desperation, the Florida Panthers overtook the Pittsburgh Penguins in the Eastern Conference standings and are now in position to make the playoffs, much to the chagrin of Montreal Canadiens fans.
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The performance of the Floridian formation interests more than one in Quebec, in order to know at what rank will be the first choice in the draft that the Habs recovered from the Panthers in the exchange of Ben Chiarot. It could well be a late selection, since the big cats continue to climb.
Saturday night in Columbus, they made short work of the poor Blue Jackets and won 7-0. The local team had lined up a formation reminiscent of preseason games rather than the end of the season.
Carter Verhaeghe scored a four-goal performance, earning the Panthers’ second consecutive hat trick after Matthew Tkachuk’s Thursday against CH. The Torontonian reached the plateaus of 40 goals and 70 points for the first time.
Anthony Duclair, Aleksander Barkov and Sam Reinhart added three points each.
Alex Lyon blocked 21 pucks for the first shutout of his National League career. At the other end of the rink, Michael Hutchinson was manhandled by 49 shots.
Help from the Lightning
What could also help the Panthers progress by the end of the campaign is the performance of the New York Islanders. The helping hand came from their great rival, the Tampa Bay Lightning, who beat the Big Apple team 5-0.
In the standings of draft teams, the “Isles” have 87 points in 76 games, the Panthers 85 in 77 and the Penguins 84 in 76. The race will be tight until the end.
The Lightning secured playoff berth with this easy win. Mikhail Sergachev, Tanner Jeannot, Nikita Kucherov, Steven Stamkos and Brayden Point hit the target in turn. The last on this list scored his 48th success of the year.
To add the shutout, his fourth of the season and his 32nd career, Andrei Vasilevskiy stood up in front of 38 pucks.
Difficult for the Senators
The rival Senators’ wins, including the Buffalo Sabers’ 6-3 win over the Philadelphia Flyers, made the job even harder for the Ottawa squad. Defeated 3-0 by the Toronto Maple Leafs, they remain stuck at 79 points.
Watch the highlights of the encounter in the video below.
Michael Bunting, William Nylander and Radim Zohorna scored the goals for the Queen City representatives in the second period.
The shutout – one of many in the National League on Saturday night – was achieved by Ilya Samsonov.