SUNRISE, Fla. -- Once upon a time, this Sunshine State swing was a welcome respite on the hockey calendar. Visit Tampa, visit the Miami area, soak up some sun amid dreary winters and return home with four points.
That's not the case anymore as the Lightning and Panthers transformed themselves into annual Stanley Cup contenders. One of them have represented the Eastern Conference in each of the last five Cup Finals.
So the Blues knew what the challenge was on Friday night against the defending champs in Sunrise. But with a 2-1 overtime loss to the Panthers, the Blues will leave the state with just one point.
Aleksander Barkov scored the winning goal for Florida on the power play with 16.2 seconds remaining in overtime. Oskar Sundqvist opened the scoring for the Blues, while Uvis Balinskis tied the game for Florida in the second period.
"You've got to earn every foot of ice against this team," Blues coach Jim Montgomery said before the game. "Them and Carolina, I would say, are the two teams that you've got to earn every foot of ice from your goal line right through to their goal line, all the way back.
"They play hard, they play fast. They're probably the heaviest team in the league. That's the reason why they won the Stanley Cup."
The Blues finish a three-game trip on Monday in Detroit.
Earning his spot
The Blues went up 1-0 about halfway through the first period, as Sundqvist made sure not to waste a skilled pass from behind the net from Alexandre Texier by flipping a puck over Panthers goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky. Texier began the play by carrying the puck out of the Blues' zone, finding Zack Bolduc with an outlet and then driving below the goal line.
When Texier collected the puck there, it wasn't long before he sent an against-the-grain pass to Sundqvist on the edge of the crease. It was Texier's first point since Oct. 29 in Ottawa, and Sundqvist's first goal since Nov. 12 in Boston.
The goal was a rare one from the Blues' depth forwards, as Sundqvist's score broke a string of seven straight goals by Pavel Buchnevich, Jordan Kyrou or Robert Thomas. It also came in Texier's second straight game in the lineup after a strong game in Tampa meant that the Blues rewarded him with more responsibility.
Even though the Blues scored on that play, it wasn't their best scoring chance of the period.
In the opening five minutes, the Blues had a pair of prime-rush chances. First, Bolduc led a 3 on 1, but tried to thread a pass to a driving Scott Perunovich instead of shooting himself. Out of a 3 on 1, the Blues failed to get a shot attempt. Next, Jake Neighbours was stopped by Bobrovsky on a 2-on-1 rush with Justin Faulk as his passing option.
Kyrou had a couple of half-chances, situations in which he appeared to be in the clear behind the Panthers, but the puck escaped him long enough to prevent a dangerous chance.
The Blues left the period with the one-goal lead, even though Florida had the territorial advantage (the Panthers had 24 of the game's 35 shot attempts).
Costly icing
The Panthers tied the game 1-1 with 9:02 remaining in the second period when Balinskis scored his first goal of the season on the shift after the Blues iced the puck. After a battle for the puck after the faceoff, Bolduc appeared to have a chance to clear the puck, but couldn't get it out of the zone. Then Balinskis snuck behind Neighbours, and was left open on the backdoor.
When Balinskis scored, two Blues (Thomas at 1:01 and Colton Parayko at 1:13) were on the ice for over a minute. Neighbours (57 seconds) and Bolduc (53 seconds) were close.
It was the seventh goal of the season allowed by the Blues after icing the puck, according to MoreHockeyStats.com.
While the Panthers might have owned the territorial edge in the first period, the Blues could lay their claim to the second 20 minutes. They outshot Florida 11-8 and drew the period's only penalty.
Cam Fowler had the Blues' best chance to score in the period when the puck popped out to him in the slot about 7 1/2 minutes into the period. Fowler also earned a new responsibility on Friday night: power-play quarterback.
It's a role that Fowler is familiar with from his time in Anaheim, but he had played just three seconds on the power play in his first four games with the Blues. On Friday, Fowler replaced Faulk on the top unit, while Faulk and Scott Perunovich rotated to run the second one.
The Blues entered Friday 0 for 8 with the man-advantage in the last five games. They scored in four of the previous five games before that.
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