Panthers top Kings 3-2 in OT for 9th straight win
Sam Reinhart scored on a backhander with less than a second to play in overtime, Matthew Tkachuk scored late in regulation to tie the game and the Florida Panthers rallied past the Los Angeles Kings 3-2 on Thursday night to push their winning streak to nine games.
Sam Bennett also scored for Florida, which trailed 1-0 and 2-1 before pulling out the win. Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 32 shots for the Panthers, plus got one of the two assists on Reinhart's winner.
Trevor Moore and Drew Doughty scored for the Kings. Cam Talbot made 36 saves for Los Angeles, which is 0-3-4 in its last seven games.
The Kings' Adrian Kempe was called for cross-checking Florida's Brandon Montour with 1:23 left in overtime, giving the Panthers a 4-on-3 edge. The Kings killed off the first 1:22 of that power play, but Reinhart got his 30th goal of the season with seventh-tenths of a second to keep the winning streak alive.
The nine-game winning streak is the third-longest in franchise history. The Panthers won 12 consecutive games in the 2015-16 season, then had their other two longest streaks in 2021-22 — eight straight wins to open that season, then 13 in a row toward the end of that season.
Doughty got his first goal in his last 15 games — he hadn't scored since Dec. 7 — about eight seconds into a Los Angeles power play late in the second for a 2-1 lead, and the Kings nearly made it hold up. But with Bobrovsky pulled for an extra attacker, Tkachuk scored with 2:18 left to pull the Panthers into a tie. It was the fifth consecutive game Tkachuk had a goal.
Both teams had chances in the extra session, before Reinhart got the one that mattered most.
UP NEXT
Kings: Visit Detroit on Saturday.
Panthers: Host New Jersey on Saturday.
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AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl
