Florida Panthers
OT in DC: Florida Panthers 4, Washington Capitals 3


The Florida Panthers played yet another close game on Wednesday night — this one against the host Washington Capitals.
Florida, which trailed early and going into the third, tied the score at 3:33 of the period on a sweet pass from Gus Forsling to a driving Evan Rodrigues.
In overtime, things were over quickly.
Thanks Sam Reinhart.
Reinhart scored off a pass from Sasha Barkov just 15 seconds in to lead Florida to a 4-3 win.
The Panthers (7-4-1) are now 4-0-1 in 1-goal games and 7-3-1 in games decided by 2-goals or fewer.
The only blowout? Saturday’s 5-2 loss in Chicago.
On Wednesday, the Panthers fell behind on a goal in which Anthony Mantha threw up a shot which bounced off Anton Lundell and went past Sergei Bobrovsky.
Florida, getting outplayed and outchanced to that point, would come right back.
Oliver Ekman-Larsson scored 2 minutes later on Florida’s third shot on goal — with Barkov giving the Panthers a lead at 16:45 after Reinhart did a terrific job battling for the puck along the wall and feeding his linemate.
The second, however, belonged to the Caps.
Washington ended up scoring twice in the period — three, if you count the Sonny Milano goal wiped out by Tom Wilson being offside — and took a 3-2 lead into the third.
GOALS OF THE GAME
- Capitals 1, Panthers 0 (10:42, 1st): Anthony Mantha flies a shot toward the middle of the ice and strikes Anton Lundell and gets it past Sergei Bobrovsky.
- Panthers 1, Capitals 1 (12:49, 1st): Oliver Ekman-Larsson fires off a wrister from 50 feet out on Florida’s third shot of the night.
- Panthers 2, Capitals 1 (16:45, 1st): Sam Reinhart battled hard to keep the puck deep in the Washington zone and feeds Sasha Barkov for a one-timer from the left circle.
- Capitals 2, Panthers 2 (6:13, 2nd SH): Connor McMichael gets loose on the Florida power play and drives in on Bobrovsky to tie things up.
- Capitals 3, Panthers 2 (15:51, 2nd): Mike Reilly turned over the puck along the half wall in the Florida zone with McMichael bringing it up the ice on the breakaway. Mantha finishes — the only Florida player he hit on this shot was Bobrovsky.
- Panthers 3, Capitals 3 (3:33, 3rd): Barkov’s faceoff win made its way to Gus Forsling — who threads the needle from the halfwall to Evan Rodrigues crashing the net.
- Panthers 4, Capitals 3 (0:15, OT): Reinhart took a long pass from Barkov and beat Darcy Kuemper for the winner.
GR’S 3 STARS OF THE GAME
1. Sam Reinhart, Florida (GWG, assist)
2. Sasha Barkov, Florida (goal, assist)
3. Anthony Mantha, Washington (2 goals)
PANTHERS ON DECK
CAROLINA HURRICANES @ FLORIDA PANTHERS
- When: Friday, 7 p.m.
- Where: Amerant Bank Arena, Sunrise
- TV/Streaming: Bally Sports Florida, ESPN+
- Radio: WQAM 560-AM, WPOW 95.6 FM2,WBZT 1230-AM (Palm Beach); WCTH 100.3-FM (Florida Keys); SiriusXM
- Panthers Radio Streaming: SiriusXM 932
- Last Season — Regular Season: Carolina won 2-1; Eastern Conference finals: Florida won 4-0.
- This Season: @Florida Friday; @Carolina Feb. 22, March 14
- All-Time Regular Season Series: Carolina/Hartford leads 71-46-10, 11 ties
- Postseason History: Florida 1-0 (2023 ECF)
- Up Next for the Panthers: Sunday vs. Chicago, 1 p.m.


Love the fight of this team! Down at two different times and we fight back both times and pull ahead at the end. Way to go Cats!
It still blows my mind that Gus Forsling was a waiver wire pick up, he is a top pairing d-man on ANY nhl team, IMO, he is the premier “stay at home” defenseman in the league, thats how good he’s been for us. That comes with a mentally, He has zero ego, and just does his job, and we gave up nothing to get him, just unreal.