Marchessault's outburst lifts Panthers past Coyotes
SUNRISE, Fla. -- Jonathan Marchessault broke a tie score by scoring twice within 26 seconds as the Florida Panthers defeated the Arizona Coyotes 3-1 on Thursday night at the BB&T Center.
Florida (32-30-11) improved to 4-10-1 in its past 15 games, getting solid goaltending from James Reimer (22 saves). Florida also got a goal from Shawn Thornton, his second of the season.
Arizona (27-38-9), which was eliminated from playoff contention Monday, fell to 4-3-1 in its past eight games.
Tobias Rieder, who beat the Panthers with an overtime goal Jan. 23 in Arizona, scored again Thursday. It was his 16th goal of the season.
Marchessault, who has 25 goals in his breakout season, got his latest two scores in the second period.
The first Marchessault goal happened when Aleksander Barkov came up with a loose puck along the left boards and made a nice pass over a sprawled Arizona defenseman. All Marchessault had to do was redirect the puck into the open right side of the net.
On his second goal, Marchessault was on the left. After a cross-ice feed from Thomas Vanek, Marchessault cranked a hard wrist shot just over the head of goalie Mike Smith (36 saves).
Rieder scored the only goal of the first period. He intercepted a cross-ice pass from Panthers defenseman Mark Pysyk and raced in alone on Reimer, beating him high to the stick side with a backhand-to-forehand move.
Florida tied the score 1-1 with 12:22 left in the second period on a goal that was only credited to the Panthers after a video review. The puck was clearly in, but at issue was whether Thornton scored before Smith and Coyotes teammate Jordan Martinook made contact and dislodged the net, accidentally or otherwise.
NOTES: Panthers D Aaron Ekblad who missed four games due to a concussion and returned Tuesday, was out of the lineup again. This time, he missed due to a sore neck -- unrelated to the concussion -- and was replaced by D Jakub Kindl. ... The Panthers were also without G Roberto Luongo (lower-body injury) and C Denis Malgin (concussion). ... Panthers C Michael Sgarbossa was a healthy scratch. ... Arizona scratched RW Shane Doan (lower body), D Kevin Connauton (upper body) and C Alexander Burmistrov (concussion). Doan, the team captain, missed his fourth straight game. ... Healthy scratches for Arizona were D Zbynek Michalek and LW Teemu Pulkkinen. ... Arizona has two more stops on its five-game road trip: Saturday versus the Washington Capitals and Monday against the St. Louis Blues. ... Florida hosts the Chicago Blackhawks on Saturday before playing four straight on the road.