Three takeaways: Penalty kill steps up without Sam Reinhart, momentum building in Spencer Knight

A packed house in Sunrise was treated to a fun Florida Panthers game on Saturday night.

Florida, on the shoulders of an excellent game by goalie Spencer Knight, defeated the visiting Anaheim Ducks by a 3-0 final score.

It was a strong 60-minute effort by Florida, especially when taking into account that they played more than two periods without Sam Reinhart, who plays any and all situations for the Cats.

Now the Panthers will hit the road for a nice, long west coast road trip that begins on Tuesday against these very same Ducks from Anaheim.

Let’s get to Saturday’s takeaways:

GREAT KNIGHT FOR SPENCER

Don’t look now but Spencer Knight is getting into a nice groove.

He’s won all three of his starts since the calendar flipped to 2025, allowing just three total goals on 92 shots.

He finished Saturday’s win over Anaheim with 34 saves, including stops on all eight of the Ducks high danger shots, according to Natural Stat Trick.

“He's worked really hard,” said Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice. “He's performed well in practice, and he's getting more starts, and he's rising to the occasion and give us a chance to win.”

PENALTY KILL STRONG

It’s been a bit of a mixed bag for the Panthers lately in terms of both staying out of the penalty box and killing of those penalties.

Both of those issues were handled by Florida on Saturday.

The Panthers were only called for two penalties – one of which being the five-minute major to Sam Reinhart – and they successfully killed off all seven minutes of Ducks power play time.

Considering the game was still scoreless during both of Anaheim’s power plays, the kills were quite big for the Cats.

FILLING IN FOR REINO

There are a handful of Panthers who are incredibly difficult to replace when out of the lineup, and Reinhart is definitely one of them.

He’s involved in seemingly every element of the game, and he’s impactful just about any time the puck is on his stick.

From elite, two-way five-on-five play to his crucial contributions on the power play, and then there’s what he can do on the penalty kill, leading the NHL in shorthanded goals.

“He touches all parts of it,” Maurice said. “He kills penalties, plays against the other teams’ best, he's our leading scorer, he runs the power play, he's a great conscience on the bench – he knows when we're going and he's cheering, and he knows when we're not and he's barking – so we miss him. We miss him dearly, but we did a pretty good job.”

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