RECAP: Red Wings 5, Panthers 2

SUNRISE, Fla. – Penalties sometimes prove to be too costly to overcome.

Despite a good effort at even strength, the Florida Panthers surrendered three power-play goals in a 5-2 loss to the Detroit Red Wings at Amerant Bank Arena on Thursday.

With the loss, Florida now sits at 26-17-3.

“We’ve got to stay out of the box,” forward Evan Rodrigues said. “I think the last six or seven games we’ve been taking too many penalties. It cost us tonight. I think at even strength we played well, but special teams kind of won them the game today.”

At 5-on-5, the Panthers led 2-1 in goals and 33-10 in scoring chances.

“We’ve got to kill the penalties that we take,” head coach Paul Maurice said. “We do everything we can to stay out of the penalty box, but we had a tough night on the kill."

Opening the scoring for the Red Wings, Jonatan Berggren beat Sergei Bobrovsky with a quick shot from the left circle on the power play to make it 1-0 at 8:48 of the first period.

Responding for the Panthers, Anton Lundell pounced on a rebound outside the blue paint after a shot from Carter Verhaeghe and chipped it past Cam Talbot to make it 1-1 at 11:01.

Controlling play in the first period, the Panthers allowed just six shots on goal.

“He’s playing with a lot of confidence,” Rodrigues said of Lundell.

With the Panthers getting into penalty trouble in the second period, the Red Wings made them pay a second time when Dylan Larkin went to the crease and re-directed a tape-to-tape centering feed from Patrick Kane through traffic into the cage to make it 2-1 at 7:52.

Detroit’s newfound lead would las less than a minute.

Just 29 seconds after falling behind, the Panthers got the game back to even when Rodrigues took a sweet dish from rookie Mackie Samoskevich and scored to make it 2-2 at 8:21.

“I liked our energy when we came out -- our physicality and focus” Maurice said.

Unfortunately, penalties continued to be costly for the Panthers.

Netting their third power-play goal of the game, the Red Wings regained the lead when Kane beat Bobrovsky with a snipe from the right circle to make it 3-2 at 13:44.

Soon after, Marco Kasper lit the lamp to increase Detroit’s lead to 4-2 at 15:41.

Following that goal, Spencer Knight took over in net for the Panthers.

“I would leave Sergei any day all day long that we have to come back and battle back, but some nights the guys get unlucky in the net,” Maurice said of pulling Bobrovsky. “When you get two deflections like that [on two of Detroit’s goals], he’s right and his position is solid.”

In the third period, the Panthers continued to press with no reward.

Over the final 20 minutes, they led the Red Wings 33-9 in shot attempts, 23-5 in shots on goal and 17-4 scoring chances, mustering zero goals despite posting 2.47 expected goals.

On a late power play for Florida, Talbot kept the Panthers at bay with four key saves.

With 1:22 left in regulation, Larkin locked in the 5-2 win for Detroit with an empty-net goal.

“It was a weird game today,” Rodrigues said. “I thought we played pretty well, but they capitalized on their chances, and it obviously wasn’t good enough.”

THEY SAID IT

“Take the positive out of it. At 5-on-5, we were pretty good. We got away from it a little bit in the second [period], but again a lot of special teams in the second so we didn’t get to roll lines over and tilt the ice a little bit.” – Evan Rodrigues

“We had some good looks. I feel like that’s kind of the story this year. We need to do a better job of getting to the net. We’re always almost there, and we need to get there. It’s a tough one. Special teams were huge.” – Carter Verhaeghe

CATS STATS

- The Panthers led 4.56-2.35 in expected goals, per NaturalStatTrick.com.

- The Panthers led 31-4 in 5-on-5 shot attempts when Uvis Balinskis was on the ice.

- Sam Reinhart registered a team-high seven scoring chances.

- Aleksander Barkov went 11-for-14 (78.6%) in the faceoff circle.

- Anton Lundell and Niko Mikkola each recorded five hits.

WHAT’S NEXT?

The Panthers will try to get back in the win column when they close out their homestand with a matchup against the Anaheim Ducks at Amerant Bank Arena on Saturday at 6 p.m. ET.

For tickets, click HERE.