Wednesday Round-Up: Panthers Hammer Leafs, Caps Top Lightning

SUNRISE, Fla. (AP) — Aleksander Barkov and Carter Verhaeghe had power-play goals, Sam Reinhart had a short-handed score and the Florida Panthers beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 5-1 on Wednesday night for only their second win in eight games.

Mackie Samoskevich also scored for Florida, Sam Bennett got an empty-net goal and Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 24 shots for the Panthers. Verhaeghe also had two assists.

Mitch Marner scored for the Maple Leafs, who lost for the second time in the last nine games and saw their lead in the Atlantic Division over Florida cut to one point.

Anthony Stolarz stopped 19 shots for Toronto. The Maple Leafs lost forward Bobby McMann in the second period with a lower body injury.

Takeaways

Maple Leafs: Stolarz, defenceman Oliver Ekman-Larsson and forward Steven Lorentz — all Pantherslast season — got their Stanley Cup championship rings in a Wednesday morning ceremony. Pantherscoach Paul Maurice, general manager Bill Zito and a number of Panthers players also were present to celebrate with their former teammates. “Worth the wait,” Lorentz said.

Panthers: Florida was without Anton Lundell, who left Monday’s game after a puck was deflected into his face. He took part in the morning skate Wednesday but wasn’t in the game lineup.

Key moment

Samoskevich’s goal put Florida up 2-0 — it came 50 seconds after Barkov opened the scoring — and was a very good sign for the Panthers. They’re now 4-0-0 when the former Michigan star gets a goal.

Key stat

Reinhart has four short-handed goals this season. The only team — besides Florida — with four short-handed goals this season is Columbus, and 20 NHL clubs entered Wednesday with no more than one such goal this season.

Up next

The Maple Leafs visit Tampa Bay on Saturday, while the Panthers visit Carolina on Friday to start a home-and-home, with the return Saturday in Sunrise.

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Tom Wilson scored a power-play goal with 3:26 left in regulation to lift the Washington Capitals to a 5-4 victory against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Wednesday night.

With Anthony Cirelli in the box for a high-sticking, double-minor penalty with 4:03 left, Wilson tipped a Jakob Chychrun shot for the winning goal.

Aliaksei Protas scored shorthanded while Andrew Mangiapane, Dylan Strome and John Carlson scored for Washington, which has won six straight on the road. Charlie Lindgren finished with 24 saves.

Brayden Point registered his fifth career hat trick for Tampa Bay while Michael Eyssimont also scored for the Lightning. Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 27 shots.

Tampa Bay had leads of 2-0, 3-2 and 4-3, with Point’s hat trick goal giving Tampa Bay the lead after Lindgren tried to play the puck behind him but fired it into his own net at 7:25 of the third period. But Carlson pulled the Capitals even again with 9:30 left.

Takeaways

Capitals: Washington has two power-play goals in four games since Alex Ovechkin was injured.

Lightning: Head coach Jon Cooper coached his 900th career regular season game to become just the eighth coach in league history to do so with one franchise.

Key moment

After Lindgren’s mishap on the own goal put Tampa Bay in front, the Capitals did not get rattled and answered three minutes later with Carlson’s third goal of the season.

Key stat

Point scored three goals on Wednesday, including his league-leading eighth power-play goal. Point has a goal in 71% of the games he’s played in this season, 12 of 17 games.

Up next

Washington returns home to host the New York Islanders on Friday while the Lightning are at Nashville on Friday.