Reinhart nets 30th goal, Maurice gets 900th win as Panthers ease past Blackhawks 5-1

Sam Reinhart got his 30th goal of the season and added two assists, Matthew Tkachuk scored for the third time in the last four games and the Florida Panthers beat the Chicago Blackhawks 5-1 on Saturday.

Carter Verhaeghe, Evan Rodrigues and Jonah Gadjovich also scored for Florida, and Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 24 shots. Aleksander Barkov had two assists for the Panthers, who ensured they would remain atop the Atlantic Division.

The win was the 900th regular-season victory as a coach for Florida’s Paul Maurice, who is the fourth to hit that milestone. The others: Scotty Bowman (1,244), Joel Quenneville (969) and Barry Trotz (914).

Chicago got the fastest goal in franchise history for a quick 1-0 lead, with Landon Slaggert scoring just seven seconds into the contest. Petr Mrazek stopped 39 shots for the Blackhawks, who are 2-6-3 in their last 11 games.

Takeaways

Blackhawks: Chicago fell to 0-23-2 this season when allowing at least four goals, 0-27-3 in its last 30 such games dating to last season. But Mrazek was, at times, sensational on Saturday — especially in a first-period barrage.

Panthers: Reinhart is the second player to have four 30-goal seasons for Florida, with Olli Jokinen being the other. Reinhart is the first to do it in four consecutive seasons with the Panthers.

Key moment

Rodrigues scored 10 seconds into the third period for a 4-1 lead, pretty much ending any Chicago comeback hopes.

Key stat

After Chicago’s goal at the :07 mark of the first period, Florida took 20 of the game’s next 21 shots on net.

Up next

Chicago is off until a home game with Edmonton on Wednesday. Florida plays the second half of a home back-to-back against the New York Islanders on Sunday.

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AP NHL: https://www.apnews.com/hub/NHL