Panthers return from Finland, continue to roll with 6-2 rout of Predators

A month into their title defense, the Florida Panthers are the best team on two continents.

Fresh off their Scandinavian sweep of the Dallas Stars, the Panthers returned home in championship form, bludgeoning the Nashville Predators 6-2 on Thursday night for their Eastern Conference-leading 21st point in 14 games.

Panthers players arrived to the game in style, wearing the same sauna robes that were their gameday attire in their two games in Finland. Florida is now 3-0 when arriving to the arena in bath wear.

The attire was new but the results were not. The Panthers’ winning streak predates their time in Europe.

Most importantly, the Panthers showed no signs of jet lag after an 11-hour flight home earlier this week.

“That’s the big concern, because you’re not sure,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. “It’s not like any other long road trip. You’ve got probably a seven-hour time change there. But we looked right yesterday. I think our team performance group, those guys have been great about all the things that you need to do to try to mitigate the time change and we looked right.”

They have looked more than right for weeks now. The win was Florida’s sixth in a row, the second-longest active streak in the league behind only the Carolina Hurricanes, who on Thursday won their eighth consecutive game.

Those Sun Belt leaders of their respective division will meet later this month in a Thanksgiving weekend back-to-back.

On Thursday, the Panthers (10-3-1) had to settle for feasting on arguably the worst team in the league, blasting the Predators (4-9-1) to kick off a five-game home stand.

Sam Reinhart scored his team-leading 11th goal Thursday, Aleksander Barkov provided three assists, and Carter Verhaeghe scored twice and set up a third in Florida’s runaway win.

“We’re defending hard and when we defend hard, good things come from it,” said Verhaeghe, the game’s No. 1 star. “And I think that’s kind of our mindset, and I think when we defend, that’s how we score goals.”

The way Florida’s offense is clicking, you could argue that this is a more complete team than the one that captured the Cup five months ago.

During their six-game unbeaten run — their fourth such streak since the beginning of last season — the Panthers have produced 30 goals. They entered the game sixth in the league in scoring (3.7, a half goal more than they averaged a year ago) despite Barkov and Matthew Tkachuk missing a combined 13 games early in the season.

“I think healthy, we are a better offensive forward group than we were last year,” Maurice said. “Most of that I think comes from ... Anton Lundell, that third line now can score and they can be a difference-maker. And Anton, it took him a long time last year to get it going offensively. We feel our forward group can score goals”

Florida’s forwards were responsible for all six goals Thursday night. From the opening faceoff, they controlled the action.

Their first two goals came in succession while many fans were still finding their seats.

Reinhart got it started just three and half minutes into the game, and it was a beautiful way to begin. He took a feed in transition from Barkov, wrapped around the goal, and fired in a shot that ricocheted off Scott Wedgewood’s pad and stick into the goal.

One hundred one seconds later, the Panthers’ lead doubled when Tkachuk was the initiator on a 2-on-1 rush. He gathered his tipped centering pass to Verhaeghe and found the back of the net for his fourth goal of the year.

It was Florida’s 11th first-period goal over the last six games.

The avalanche continued early in the second when Evan Rodrigues scored for the third straight game, beating Wedgewood high just after a Florida man advantage expired.

Then Verhaeghe took over, scoring backhand on a Panthers power play despite having his stick held. He then closed out the period with a nifty 2-on-1 give-and-go breakaway with Barkov, who posted his ninth assist in just six games.

Fourth-line center Tomas Nosek capped Florida’s scoring with a third-period power play goal, his first of the season. Steven Stamkos and Juuso Parssinen were responsible for Nashville’s scoring in the Preds’ fifth loss in six games.