Florida shut down by Devils 4-1, winning streak ends at 7

The Florida Panthers struggled on home ice Tuesday and saw their winning streak come to an end.

Facing the Metropolitan Division-leading New Jersey Devils, Florida fell behind early and never found the lead, dropping the first of two straight against the Devils by a 4-1 final score.

The Panthers recorded nine of the game’s first eleven shots, but couldn’t get one past Devils goaltender Jacob Markstrom.

The twelfth shot of the night would go in, and it belonged to Jack Hughes of the Devils.

Hughes one-timed a gorgeous cross-zone diagonal pass off the stick of Jesper Bratt to give New Jersey a 1-0 lead at the 8:30 mark of the opening period.

Well, it took 20 shots and nearly half the game, but the Panthers finally solved Markstrom.

On Florida’s third power play of the night, an Uvis Balinskis point shot was deflected by Sam Reinhart to tie the game at one.

The Devils nearly took the lead back a couple minutes later, but Spencer Knight flashed the leather and come up with a nice glove save on a Dawson Mercer breakaway.

He wasn’t as fortunate when Timo Meier came in on a breakaway later in the period, getting beat on the blocker side for his second goal against on the night, both coming on high-end chances.

New Jersey made it 3-1 with both teams playing four-on-four for an extended segment during the third period.

Moments after Matthew Tkachuk was called for embellishing a tripping call on Brett Pesce, keeping the game at even strength instead of giving Florida a 4-on-3 power play, Paul Cotter beat Knight under the crossbar to extend the Devils lead with 4:53 to go.

An empty-net goal by Ondrej Palat ended Florida’s final charge and handed them their first regulation loss in three weeks.

On to the Devils…again.

QUICK THOUGHTS

Reinhart extended his point streak to eight games. He’s up to 12 goals and 24 points this season.

Sasha Barkov has points in all six of the games he’s played since returning from injury. With an assist Tuesday, he’s up to two goals and 12 points during the run.

With an assist, Balinskis now has four points over his past four games, three of which came on the power play.

Knight finished with 20 saves, including stops on all seven of the Devils high danger shots. He was only 4-for-7 on medium danger shots, though.

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