Carter Verhaeghe scored a team-record four even-strength goals as the Florida Panthers closed out a four-game road trip at 3-1 with a 7-0 rout of the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Sam Reinhart added a goal and two assists, Nick Cousins and Eric Staal also scored and Anthony Duclair and Aleksander Barkov each had three assists in the Panthers’ third straight road victory.
With losses by the teams who, coming into Saturday, owned the seventh and eighth playoff spots in the Eastern Conference playoff race, Florida grabbed the eighth seed.
The Panthers have 85 points but play only five more games in the regular season, but four of them will be at home. The Pittsburgh Penguins, now ninth at 84 points with six games left after a 4-3 loss to the Boston Bruins, have an even split of remaining games at home and on the road.
The New York Islanders are in seventh with 87 points with a half-dozen games left, also equally split, after their 5-0 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday night.
Michael Hutchinson stopped 42 shots for Columbus, which was shut out for the fifth time this season and has lost four straight. The Blue Jackets are tied with Chicago for the worst record in the NHL.
Florida dominated from the start, using a power-play score from Reinhart, his team-leading 15th of the season, and a goal from Verhaeghe for a 2-0 lead after the first 20 minutes.
Verhaeghe took charge of the second period, making it 3-0 after 18 seconds and completing a natural hat trick, the third of his career, just over six minutes later.
Cousins made it 5-0 at 8:34 of the third before Verhaeghe added his team-leading 40th.
Staal made it 7-0 with 5:44 left.
UP NEXT
Panthers: Host Buffalo on Tuesday night.
English (United States) ·