by The Florida Panthers have an incredible captain.
A ridiculous all-around effort from Sasha Barkov in the final minute of overtime gave the Florida Panthers a 2-1 victory over the St. Louis Blues on Friday night at Amerant Bank Arena.
The win was Florida’s third straight overall and fourth straight on home ice.
The Blues scored the first goal of the game on a play that didn’t look like much as the puck found its way under the Panthers’ goal line.
A quick feed from Alexandre Texier gave Oskar Sundqvist the lead and his quick one-timer beat Sergei Bobrovsky for the lead at 10:13.
In this way, the score remained the same for almost the entire period, thanks in large part to the strong play of Blues goalkeeper Joel Hofer.
Florida finally tied the game midway through the second period, and it was a defenseman who scored the goal.
Uvis Balinskis sneaked down from the blue line and was spotted by Sasha Barkov, who fired a quick one-timer over Hofer for his first goal of the season.
The Panthers continued to control most of the game through the end of the second period and well into the third period, dominating offensive zone time and puck possession.
However, despite all her time with the puck, it wasn’t easy to create quality scoring opportunities.
It took until the final minute of overtime for Florida to finally defeat the Blues, and that was all Barkov.
After converting a penalty late in the shift while playing away with the puck, Barkov came back on the ice for the power play and scored the game-winning goal for Hofer.
This man is on another level.
On to Tampa.
QUICK THOUGHTS
Balinskis’ goal was the second of his career and the first since last November.
He also took six shots, the most of his career, leading all players.
Matthew Tkachuk picked up an assist, giving him 15 points in nine games this month.
Barkov has now scored four goals in his last six games.
Bobrovsky finished the game with 26 saves, including six of the Blues’ seven dangerous shots.
Florida ended up with only two dangerous shots.
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