Sunrise, FL – The Florida Panthers are back from their Euro Trip, and if you watched my pregame report on Instagram, I did reference the movie. Florida traveled to Helsinki, Finland to take on the Winnipeg Jets in back-to-back games, splitting them both, losing the 1st & winning the 2nd by the same score, 4-2. Evgenii Dadonov and Keith Yandle scored in both games. Those guys have been on a tear! However, with only three wins this season, their good form isn’t translating to W’s!

Tonight, The Cats stayed on the win column, with a 4-1 victory, and hopefully, they’ll start a little streak, as they face the Edmonton Oilers, who were at 8-6-1 coming in. Their superstar, Connor McDavid is 2nd in the NHL in scoring, but led the lead the league the past two seasons, and is approaching the 100 goal milestone. On a positive note, we got Roberto Luongo back from injury! He went down with a lower-body injury in the Panthers 1st game of the season in Tampa. Aside from getting our stud back, I’m always on the lookout for Yandle, the team’s assist leader, to connect with Dadonov, the Cat Daddy, who leads the Cats in goals scored.

The game was scoreless through the first period. Florida only had one 5v4 power play and wasn’t able to capitalize. It wasn’t until the 2nd period that the Cats came alive. The trend this season has been for the team to fall apart, or give up a lead in the 2nd, so maybe their Euro Trip helped exorcized some demons. Six minutes into the period, Aleksander Barkov and Mike Hoffman linked up to create a play for Dadonov, who opened up the scoring to put the Panthers on top. Less than two minutes later, Bogdan Kiselevich assisted Big Nick Bjugstad to extend the lead to 2-0!

In the 3rd period, Edmonton wasted no time trying to stage a comeback. Less than a minute in, Mike Matheson gave the puck away in the neutral zone, which led to a Connor McDavid assist to Leon Draisaitl. Three minutes later, Florida earned a power play after Ryan Nugent-Hopkins received a two-minute penalty for slashing Jonathan Huberdeau. Sweet Child of Mine! A few seconds into the power play, the Cats said, “Welcome to the Jungle!” and once again extended their lead. Yandle and Vincent Trocheck combined to assist Jonathan Huberdeau for the 3-1 lead! The Oilers came to Sunrise, but felt that November Rain. With seconds left in the game, and Edmonton having pulled their goalie to add an extra attacker, the Panthers saw an empty and Colton Sceviour capitalized. With the 4-1 victory, all was right in Paradise City.

The trip seemed to be a nice change of pace for the Panthers. Coach Bob Boughner was certainly happy about his team’s performance tonight. If you listen to local south Florida sports-talk radio, local media had him on the “hot seat” due to the team’s poor start, and with Chicago firing their three-time NHL champion, coach Joel Quenneville, many were speculating that the Panthers could lure the veteran Canadian coach to Sunny South Florida. Nevertheless, coach Boughner said in his postgame press conference when asked about the trip, “I just think we had a good time as a team there. We bonded a little bit, and we came back with a big win”. Next up, the Panthers face the New York Islanders, whom they’ve already beaten, on Saturday, Nov. 10th.

Coach Bob Boughner after The Florida Panthers 4-1 defeat of the Edmonton Oilers. Posted by Lemon City Live on Thursday, November 8, 2018

📷Credit: Jasen Vinlove – USA TODAY Sports

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