2 weeks Ago By Field Level Media
Matthew Tkachuk collected his first two goals of the season Saturday night for the Florida Panthers, who scored the final six goals as they stormed back to beat the host New York Islanders 6-3 in Elmont, N.Y. Mackie Samoskevich and Sam Bennett had the tying and go-ahead goals for the Panthers, who have won the first two games of a five-game trip away from home (which ends with a pair of games in Finland).
Sam Reinhart opened the Florida scoring while Gustav Forsling added an empty-netter in the third. Goaltender Spencer Knight made 26 saves. Dennis Cholowski, Kyle Palmieri and Brock Nelson all scored in the first for the Islanders, who have alternated losses with wins in each of their last seven games.
Semyon Varlamov recorded 22 saves. Cholowski, making his season debut with the Islanders, opened the scoring at the 1:32 mark when the defenseman's shot from the blue line threaded a gaggle of players -- including teammates Anders Lee and Casey Cizikas and the Panthers' Jesper Boqvist and Forsling -- and went past Knight's stick arm. The Islanders doubled their lead 4:29 later after Palmieri got his raised stick on Ryan Pulock's shot from the blue line before nudging the puck between Knight's legs.
Nelson put the Islanders up 3-0 with 8:19 remaining when he collected the rebound of Maxim Tsyplakov's shot off the back boards and tucked the puck into the corner of the net. The Panthers started inching back into the game just 1:46 later. Eetu Luostarinen picked off Cholowski's attempted clearing pass and fed a streaking Reinhart, who bore in on Varlamov and sent a shot under his glove.
Tkachuk got behind Varlamov to put back the carom of Carter Verhaeghe's shot off the far post at the 6:38 mark of the second. Samoskevich tied the score with 1:44 left, when he took a pass from Dmitry Kulikov in the neutral zone and surged past Bo Horvat and Noah Dobson before beating Varlamov with a wraparound shot. Bennett was credited with the go-ahead goal 6:19 into the third when Tkachuk's shot glanced off Varlamov and ticked off Bennett's stick.
Tkachuk scored a power-play goal with 10:11 left before Forsling's length-of-the-ice empty netter with 2:17 left. This article first appeared on Field Level Media and was syndicated with permission..
