Anthony Stolarz made 34 saves and Anton Lundell had a pair of assists to lead the visiting Florida Panthers to a 2-1 victory over the Anaheim Ducks on Friday night.
Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Eetu Luostarinen each scored goals for Florida, which won for the sixth time in its last seven games. It was the final game of a three-game California road trip that started with a 5-3 win at San Jose on Tuesday followed by a 2-1 loss at Los Angeles on Thursday.
Frank Vatrano scored his 12th goal of the season and John Gibson finished with 32 saves for Anaheim, which lost its second straight.
Florida took a 1-0 lead at the 14:50 mark of the first period when Luostarinen took a crossing pass from behind the net from Lundell and then put a wrist shot inside the left post for his first goal of the season.
Ekman-Larsson made it 2-0 a few minutes later when he took a cross-ice pass from Lundell at the bottom of the left circle and snapped a shot off the inside of the far-right post for his fifth goal of the season.
Stolarz, making his fourth start of the season, came up with a pair of big saves during a scoreless second period, making left pad stops on clean breakaways by Ryan Strome and Adam Henrique.
The Ducks cut it to 2-1 through midway through the third period on a power-play goal by Vatrano. He put in a rebound of a Henrique shot for his fifth power-play goal of the season.
Anaheim appeared to tie the game with 8:49 remaining on Jakob Silfverberg’s wraparound shot by the right post. But following a lengthy video review, it was determined that the shot didn’t completely cross the goal line before being stopped by Stolarz’s left pad.
Gibson was pulled for an extra attacker with 2:09 left, but Stolarz came up with saves on a slap shot by Cam Fowler and a wrist shot by Max Jones to seal the win.
–Field Level Media
