Florida Panthers Brian Campbell celebrates after scoring a goal against Red Wings. PICTURE USA TODAY Sports
By Harvey Fialkov/Sun Sentinel
If this keeps up the Panthers may start a petition to stop the wrecking ball from demolishing venerable Joe Louis Arena as planned in a few years.
Because as of late Sunday afternoon the Panthers basically own Hockey Town USA.
A resilient Reilly Smith shook off a disputed call against him in the first period that cost him a goal but scored the tying one late in the third before Brian Campbell potted the game winner in overtime to lift the Panthers to a 2-1 victory over the Detroit Red Wings.
If not for sterling goaltending by Roberto Luongo the Panthers wouldn’t have won their fifth straight game in the ‘Joe’, where they have gone 6-0-1 since their last loss in regulation on Dec. 15, 2007.
“I’m trying to do my job and come up with big saves when needed,” said Luongo, who had 28 saves in his 883rd game to surpass former Panthers goalie John Vanbiesbrouck into eighth place all-time.
“It was nice to tie it up in the third and get rewarded for making a few saves ... It’s the first of a (five-game) road trip and a good way to kick it off.”
The Panthers’ first third-period comeback win of the season (1-8-1) trimmed Detroit’s lead for the top wild-card berth in the Eastern Conference to four points with a game in hand before heading to St. Louis where they have lost six straight to the rugged Blues.
The Panthers trailed 1-0 after two periods because of a rare turnover by Aleksander Barkov that gift-wrapped a goal for teenage phenom Dylan Larkin at 7:02 of the second period for his rookie-leading 10th goal of the season.
The Panthers, who inched over hockey’s version of .500 (10-9-4), must have noticed that the Red Wings have now blown third-period leads in five of their last seven games.
Despite going 0-for-5 on their Jekyll and Hyde power play -- which is ranked third at home and 29th on the road -- including a 5-on-3 advantage for 1:27 of the second period, the Panthers tied it with 5:22 remaining.
After getting knocked down in front Smith bounced up to deflect the seemingly always accurate shot of Aaron Ekblad – of nearby Windsor – for his sixth goal of the season.
“I probably could’ve had that goal turned around some way like the first one did,” Smith said. “I thought it might’ve been goaltender interference. ... It worked out that way. I had one taken away from me earlier and it seemed like we got positive bounces the rest of the game.”
Smith was referring to his backhander in front that got past Red Wings goalie Petr Mrazek just 28 seconds into the game. The refs waved off their initial goal call because Jonathan Huberdeau slid into Mrazek’s legs before the puck went in.
Panthers coach Gerard Gallant challenged the no-goal call, claiming that Huberdeau was tripped into Mrazek by Niklas Kronwall.
The Situation Room disagreed and upheld the no-goal call.
“It was 50-50,” Gallant said. “I thought it was a close call. It didn’t go our way.”
For the next 55 minutes nothing else got past Mrazek (30 saves), who was as solid as Luongo throughout. However in the frenetic 3-on-3 overtime, Campbell noticed that Red Wings’ Pavel Datsyuk tripped on his stick to open up an odd-man rush.
Jussi Jokinen led a 3-on-2 break before zipping it cross-ice to Huberdeau, who spotted Campbell joining the rush and laid it on his blade where the veteran defenseman rifled a top-shelf, lamplighter at 1:20 of OT for his second goal of the season and 16th game-winning tally of his career.
“I was hoping (Huberdeau) saw me and then I just got to put it home,” Campbell said. “(This) was a big game. Look at the standings and you’d like two points and not let them pick up one, but we did what we had to do and now we got a tough building. We got to keep winning ...and start climbing the standings.”
