- January 25th, 2019, 1:33 am
#962
SUNRISE , Fla. (AP) — After a night when they produced very little, the Florida Panthers‘ top line clicked to spark a winning rally in the third period Saturday night.Jonathan Huberdeau scored with 1:06 left and Florida came back in the final period for a 2-1 win over the Philadelphia Flyers.Florida mounted the winning rush when Keith Yandle sent a long stretch-pass to Evgenii Dadonov along the boards near the Florida offensive zone. Dadonov slid a pass back to Aleksander Barkov, who found Huberdeau skating in cross-ice on the back door for his 10th goal.“Me and Barky were talking to each other and we were like, there’s no way nothing is going to happen,” Huberdeau said. “We had so many chances. Finally it happened at the end. We just stuck with it and it worked out for us.”The play wouldn’t have started without a heads-up pass by Yandle, who saw Dadonov alone halfway down the ice.“It was a great play by (Dadonov) stretching the zone and getting open. Those guys did their magic. It’s what they do. They play big for us every night and find ways to win us games,” Yandle said.Flyers interim head coach Scott Gordon said it was a risky play by Florida, who improved to 5-0-3 in the second game of back-to-back contests.“It started off, they got possession and went into a set breakout. When that happens, you have to get into your position. They just took off. And as soon as they took off , they fired it up the boards. … It’s a bit of a hope play by them,” Gordon said.Down 1-0, Florida’s second-ranked power play finally put the Panthers on the board in the third period. Huberdeau slid a pass through the slot to Mike Hoffman, who buried his team-leading 18th goal at 13:16 to tie it at 1.In Florida’s 5-3 home loss on Friday to Montreal, the Panthers top line produced just one assist.“I loved Barkov’s line all game,” Florida coach Bob Boughner said. “I think Dadonov had six or seven chances. But we didn’t stop coming. We just kept bringing our game and putting pucks behind them. It was a big difference from last night’s game and today’s game.”Shayne Gostisbehere scored for the Flyers, who lost their second straight.Barkov had two assists, and James Reimer stopped 34 shots. Carter Hart had 34 saves for the Flyers.Just like the night before in a 5-3 home loss to Montreal, the Panthers fell behind in the opening minutes. Gostisbehere sent in his fifth goal after a pass from Jordan Weal on 3-on-2 rush at 1:45 of the first period.Philadelphia killed 40 seconds of a 5-on-3 power play and the remaining 1:20 with the Panthers on the man advantage in the middle portion of the period.Hart stood strong in the second period as the Panthers put nine shots on goal, with a few being good scoring chances. He stuffed Denis Malgin in the first minute after a slick drop-pass by defenseman Mike Matheson as he went behind the Flyers’ goal.The 20-year-old goalie denied Dadonov twice in a minute — once point-blank from the middle of the slot at 14:03 http://www.clevelandbrownsteamonline.com/greg-joseph-jersey , the other when the Russian forward circled behind Hart’s goal and lifted a high shot from in close that Hart held.NOTES: With Flyers third-line center Nolan Patrick (upper body) expected to be out the next four to five days, Weal centered a line between Scott Laughton and Michael Raffl after being out most of December. Weal, 26, had only played in two of the last 12 games. … Scott Gordon is 3-2-1 since being named Philadelphia’s interim coach on Dec. 17. … Florida traded goaltender Michael Hutchinson to Toronto for a 2020 fifth-round draft pick. A free-agent acquisition, Hutchinson appeared in four games, logging a 1-1-2 record with a 4.18 goals against average and an .839 save percentage. … Matheson played in his 200th NHL game.UP NEXTFlyers: Visit the Carolina Hurricanes on Monday.Panthers: Visit the Detroit Red Wings on Monday. COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — New York gave up twice as many shots as it took, but Jimmy Vesey found the back of the net with the deciding goal in the shootout to get the Rangers another win.Vesey, who also had the game-tying goal at the end of the second period, beat Joonas Korpisalo on the glove side in the fifth round of the shootout to give the Rangers a 5-4 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday night for New York’s fifth in the last six games (5-0-1).Vesey scored in the tiebreaker right after Columbus’ Oliver Bjorkstrand was stopped by Alexandar Georgiev , the backup who had started in place of Henrik Lundqvist in the second game of a back-to-back. The Rangers improved to 4-0 in shootouts this season.“I’m pretty confident when we go into shootouts because our guys are so skilled,” said Georgiev, who had 34 saves and picked up his third win in four starts this season.The game remained tied 4-4 through the third period despite an 11-2 shot advantage by Columbus, and a scoreless 5-minute overtime period. The Blue Jackets finished with a 38-19 shot advantage.Kevin Shattenkirk and Mika Zibanejad also scored in the shootout for New York. Pavel Buchnevich had a goal and an assist in regulation, and Zibanejad and Chris Kreider also scored.Artemi Panarin and Anthony Duclair tallied in the tiebreaker for Columbus. Pierre-Luc Dubois had a goal and assist for Columbus, and Cam Atkinson, Alexander Wennberg and Nick Foligno also scored in regulation. Seth Jones had three assists. Korpisalo finished with 15 saves. Zibanejad scored the opening goal on a touch pass from Buchnevich on a 2-on-1 rush 5:54 into the game. Columbus tied it late in the first when Dubois threaded a pass into Atkinson, who tipped it in for a power-play goal.Another odd-man rush allowed Buchnevich to beat Korpisalo and give the Rangers the lead in the second period. Kreider tapped in his team-leading eighth goal of the season off a nice pass from Kevin Hayes later in the second to make it 3-1.Columbus tied the game again in the second with two goals in a 32-second span. Dubois got credit for redirecting a Jones one-timer , and Foligno tipped in the second from the door step on a rush.Wennberg got his first of the season, a short-handed tally off the post to put the Blue Jackets ahead. But the Columbus lead didn’t last long. Vesey capped the scoring in the busy second period to knot the game again at the second intermission.“You can’t overstate how important that (last) goal was ,” New York coach David Quinn said. “It really reset the game for us and gave us a little bit of a good feeling going into the locker room between the second and third.”The loss snapped a two-game winning streak for the Blue Jackets, who are 2-0-2 in last four.“Certainly, the odd-man rushes early on in the game hurt us, and the turnovers, but we played a good game,” Columbus coach John Tortorella said. “I don’t think they were in our end zone in the third period until the last shift.”Quinn agreed.“Give them credit,” he said. “They played real hard in the third and made a big push. They had some great chances. (Georgiev) stood tall, and we got two valuable road points.”NOTES: Columbus has four power-play goals in the last three games. … Atkinson returned after missing Friday night’s game to illness. His seventh goal tied him for the team lead. … New York F Mats Zuccarello (groin strain) missed his second game. … Wennberg played in his 300th NHL game. … Zibanejad has two goals and three assists in the past three games.UP NEXT:New York: Hosts Vancouver on Monday night.Columbus: At Dallas on Monday night.