VANCOUVER — Matthew Tkachuk, Gustav Forsling and Ryan Lomberg each scored in a span of 59 seconds late in the first period, and the Florida Panthers defeated the Vancouver Canucks 5-1 at Rogers Arena on Thursday.
It was the fastest three goals in the NHL this season and the fastest in Panthers history. They did it in 1:02 on Nov. 18, 2009, in a 6-2 win at the Buffalo Sabres.
“Everybody stepped up,” Tkachuk said. “Everybody contributed, but scoring three different lines after the first just really set up our night.”
Sam Bennett scored twice, Tkachuk also had two assists, and Spencer Knight made 32 saves for the Panthers (11-9-4), who ended a three-game skid with their second win in eight games (2-3-3).
Video: FLA@VAN: Panthers net 3 quick ones late in the 1st
Vancouver goalie Thatcher Demko left with an apparent right leg injury with 47 seconds left in the first period after allowing three goals on 18 shots. Spencer Martin made 12 saves in relief for the Canucks (9-12-3), who lost their second in a row after winning five of the previous six.
“How we can play so well one week and then so bad the next week, it’s pretty mind-boggling,” coach Bruce Boudreau said. “It’s just hard to understand.”
Florida outshot Vancouver 18-8 in the first period, but Demko kept it scoreless until Tkachuk scored on a backhand at 18:14, taking a centering pass cutting across the slot that caught Demko moving the wrong way to give the Panthers a 1-0. lead.
Forsling made it 2-0 at 18:49 with a shot through traffic from the left face-off dot, and Lomberg scored on a second rebound in tight at 19:13 to make it 3-0.
“It was great,” Lomberg said. “We needed this one, so I thought besides the goals we did a lot of good things for the majority of that game.”
Demko lay on the ice after the third goal and wasn’t putting any weight on his right leg while being helped to the locker room. Demko, who missed the final three games last season with a lower-body injury that required a procedure in the summer, appeared to injure himself stretching out his right pad on the initial save.
Boudreau didn’t have an update on Demko and wasn’t happy how his team played in front of him.
“We were being outplayed, sure, and then they scored the first goal and I’m sitting there going, ‘OK, let’s have a stopper shift in the next one,'” Boudreau said. “Then they score again, and it seems like we’re watching the play, going ‘What’s happening?’ And then they scored the third one and left poor [Demko] out to dry. It just seems like giveaway after giveaway after giveaway.”
Video: FLA@VAN: Bennett finishes nice pass
Bennett finished off with a pretty tic-tac-toe passing play Carter Verhaeghe and Tkachuk to extend the lead to 4-0 at 11:38 of the second period.
“We’ve gotten off to pretty good leads in the last few weeks, but I thought we did a great job of not just holding on to it, but building off of it,” Tkachuk said. “We didn’t sit back, we didn’t sit on a lead. They had their pushes in the second, they had it in the third, but we did a great job of kind of giving it right back to them in the sense. of playing more in their zone, having more shots, more chances.”
Dakota Joshua scored on a 2-on-1 at 12:26 to cut it to 4-1, but Bennett scored on a 2-on-0 with Tkachuk at 11:11 of the third period to make it 5-1 later Quinn Hughes lost the puck in his own end.
Tkachuk has 11 multipoint games in his first 22 games with the Panthers.
“They play off each other,” coach Paul Maurice said of Tkachuk and Bennett. “I think Sam’s got so much quickness in straight lines, he pulls people off, and Matthew can just wait for a puck out. He can hold on to a puck and find a hole. They’ve been really good together and that’s why we kept them together.”
Florida forward Anton Lundell left in the second period after playing 3:55. The second-line center played the last of his four shifts in the first period at 7:57 but returned to play two more early in the second period before leaving at 3:53.
“It just didn’t loosen up,” Maurice said. “He may well be fine tomorrow, or not, I guess. But it’s not something that’s long term or a concern. He just got out there, he tightened up and couldn’t go.”
NOTES: Knight (30-12-6) got his 30th win in his 49th game, the fewest to 30 wins in Panthers history (Sergei Bobrovsky, 61 games). … Florida forward Sam Reinhart extended his point streak to five games (two goals, seven assists) but defenseman Aaron Ekblad had his five-game point streak end (three goals, four assists). … Panthers forward Patrick Hornqvist played his 900th NHL game. …Forward Eric Staal had an assist, his first point for the Panthers since signing a one-year contract Oct. 21. … Canucks forward JT Miller had his nine-game point streak end (four goals, seven assists). … Vancouver defenseman Riley Stillman was minus-2 with three shots in 16:41 in his first game since Nov. 21.
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