Red-hot Sam Reinhart scored the shootout winner Friday to give the visiting Florida Panthers a 3-2 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Reinhart, the sixth shooter, beat Penguins goaltender Alex Nedeljkovic to the glove side after Nedeljkovic stopped Anton Lundell and gave up a goal to Aleksander Barkov.
Jake Guentzel, Pittsburgh’s third shooter, scored, after Rickard Rakell hit the post with his attempt and Florida’s Sergei Bobrovsky stopped Sidney Crosby’s try.
Reinhart also scored in regulation, as did Evan Rodrigues, and Oliver Ekman-Larsson added two assists for the Panthers, who won their third straight.
Bobrovsky made 35 saves through regulation and overtime.
Evgeni Malkin tied it in the final minute of regulation, and Jake Guentzel also scored for the Penguins, who are 1-2-3 in their past six games.
Nedeljkovic made 29 saves.
Pittsburgh opened the scoring at 1:51 of the first period on Guentzel’s power-play goal. Bryan Rust, from the inner edge of the left circle, found Guentzel on a backdoor pass, and Guentzel deflected the puck in at the right post.
Rodrigues tied it at 4:52 of the first, also a power-play goal. Ekman-Larsson shot it from the center point. The short rebound popped up, and Rodrigues batted it in on his backhand.
At 9:48 of the second, the Penguins’ Kris Letang was about to be called for tripping Rodrigues when he angled toward the boards and made contact with Florida captain Barkov. The contact threw Barkov off balance, and he slammed into the boards.
Barkov stayed on the ice for a few minutes before being helped off. Letang got an interference minor in addition to the tripping call. With four minutes of a man advantage, the Panthers were able to take a 2-1 lead.
Reinhart, off a feed from Ekman-Larsson, scored on a rising one-timer from above the right hash marks at 11:49. That extended Reinhart’s point streak to 12 games, extended his franchise record with goals in eight straight road games, and gave him 18 goals overall in the past 16 games.
Barkov returned before the end of the period.
With Nedeljkovic pulled, Malkin tied it 2-2 with 41.5 seconds left from the bottom of the right circle on a rebound.
–Field Level Media
