Saturday Round-Up: Panthers Paste Jets, Lightning Blank Devils

SUNRISE, Fla. (AP) — Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 27 shots for his 45th career shutout, Aleksander Barkov had a short-handed goal and two assists, and the Florida Panthers beat the NHL-leading Winnipeg Jets 5-0 on Saturday night.

Sam Reinhart had three assists for Florida, which snapped a two-game slide and became the first team to take a five-goal lead on the Jets this season. Mackie Samoskevich,Evan Rodrigues,Nate Schmidtand Dmitry Kulikov also scored for the Atlantic Division leaders.

Winnipeg goalie Connor Hellebuyck came into the night with an NHL-best 1.92 goals-against average. It rose to 2.14 after the Panthers beat him five times on 31 shots, and he took the loss for just the second time in 14 games this season.

Reinhart now has points in 10 straight games, had his fourth three-point game of the season and his first three-assist game in the regular season since he had four against Columbus on Dec. 10, 2023.

Takeaways

Jets: Despite going 0-2-0 in Florida — Winnipeg lost in Tampa Bay on Thursday — a 15-3-0 record is, by far, the best start in team history. Since hockey returned to Winnipeg in 2011, no Jets team ever had more than 11 wins through a season’s first 18 games.

Panthers: Samoskevich was back in the lineup after not playing Thursday in a loss to New Jersey and made immediate impact with the game’s opening goal — his third in his last seven games.

Key moment

Bobrovsky made a big stop on a backhander by Mark Scheifele midway through the second period to keep Florida up 2-0. Rodrigues and Barkov added goals not long afterward to blow the game open for Florida.

Key stat

The Panthers already have five short-handed goals this season (in 18 games). They had eight in the 2023-24 regular season (in 82 games).

Up next

The teams play again Tuesday in Winnipeg.

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Andrei Vasilevskiy made 29 saves for his 36th career shutout to help the Tampa Bay Lightning beat the New Jersey Devils 4-0 on Saturday night.

Vasilevskiy, who became the fastest goaltender in NHL to reach 300 wins when he beat Winnipeg 4-1 on Thursday night, had his second shutout of the season. He was at his best midway through the second period, robbing Jesper Bratt and Nico Hischier after each was left alone in front of the net.

Nick Paul put Tampa Bay at 14:27 of the opening period when his long wrist shot went through a screen and past Jacob Markstrom. Darren Raddysh scored 39 seconds into the third period to double the lead, Victor Hedman added a power-play goal at 7:40 and Anthony Cirelli was credited with an empty-net goal with 12 seconds left when Devils defenseman Luke Hughes threw his stick to keep the puck out of the net.

Tampa Bay has won five in a row against New Jersey, including both games this season, and is 9-1-0 in its past 10 meetings with the Devils.

Markstrom finished with 22 saves for New Jersey, which came into the game off back-to-back road wins against the Florida Panthers.

Takeaways

Devils: New Jersey, which entered the game second in the NHL with 72 goals, was shut out for the third time this month.

Lightning

The Lightning scored first for the ninth consecutive game. They are 5-3-1 during that span.

Key moment

Cirelli won a faceoff cleanly to set up Raddysh’s third-period goal and give the Lightning some breathing room.

Key stat

Vasilevskiy improved to 9-5-0 in his career against New Jersey, but it was the first time he’s shut out the Devils.

Up next

The Devils host Carolina on Thursday night. The Lightning visit Pittsburgh on Tuesday night.

(Associated Press)