The Florida Panthers defeated the Boston Bruins 6-4 at Amerant Bank Arena on Tuesday night, propelled by a four-goal outburst in the first period.
Florida took an early two-goal advantage with tallies 64 seconds apart. Sam Bennett opened the scoring at 6:27 with a tip-in off a pass from Evan Rodrigues, followed by Eetu Luostarinen scoring on a poke shot at 7:31. Boston answered at 15:33 when Pavel Zacha converted a shorthanded snap shot set up by Elias Lindholm and Andrew Peeke. The Panthers responded with another pair of goals before the first intermission. Sam Reinhart scored a shorthanded wrist shot off a feed from Aleksander Barkov at 18:34, and Bennett added his second goal of the night on a wrist shot just one minute later to make it 4-1.
Jonah Gadjovich extended the Florida lead to 5-1 at 9:12 of the second period with a wrist shot assisted by Jesper Boqvist and Uvis Balinskis. Charlie McAvoy pulled one back for Boston at 12:32, sending a wrist shot past Sergei Bobrovsky. In the third period, Rodrigues pushed the Panthers ahead 6-2 at 6:26 with an even-strength wrist shot. Boston mounted a late push as Trent Frederic scored at 16:51 and David Pastrnak buried a power-play wrist shot at 18:15, but Florida held on for the win.
Bobrovsky earned the victory in net for Florida, stopping 24 of 28 shots. Joonas Korpisalo took the loss for Boston, finishing with 29 saves on 35 shots. Boston went 1-for-4 on the power play, while Florida finished 0-for-6 with the man advantage. Both teams also recorded a shorthanded goal.
The outcome gave the Panthers a 1-0-0 record to start the regular season, while the Bruins moved to 0-1-0.
