Welcome to our next installment of “Back to the Future”, where we look at games of seasons past in Florida Panthers history in anticipation of next season and beyond. We will not be using any DeLoreans and our pieces will not be orchestrated by “Doc” Brown. For this series, the staff of Rats N’ Pucks will pick a random date that runs through any season in franchise history and we will look for box scores and highlight packages for games the Panthers have played on that date.
On this edition of Back to the Future, we reminisce on a game which had important playoff implications for both teams. On March 7th, 2009, the St. Louis Blues were in Sunrise to face the Panthers. The Panthers had just come off a loss and the Blues had won their previous game.
Jay Bouwmeester led all skaters with 25:15 of ice time, Tomas Vokoun stopped 26 of 29 shots, David Booth had a hat trick and four points, Radek Dvorak and Nathan Horton picked up goals, along with assists from Boumeester, Keith Ballard, Gregory Campbell, Michael Frolik, Bryan McCabe, Ville Peltonen, Karlis Skrastins and Richard Zednik. Chris Mason allowed 5 goals on 30 shots for the Blues as the Panthers took this one 5-3.
Horton opened the scoring, Booth started his hat trick with a power play goal, and then after David Backes cut the lead to one, Booth tallied another power play marker. Radek Dvorak then scored one for Florida. Then, once again, Backes cut into the lead. In the 3rd period, Brad Boyes made it a game by cutting the lead to one on the power play, but David Booth completed the hat trick and the Panthers held on from there.
The win improved the Panthers to 34-24-8, good for 5th in the Eastern conference and two points above the 9th place, and eventual Stanley Cup Champion, Pittsburgh Penguins. The Blues fell to 29-28-8 and were four points behind the 8th placed team in the West, Dallas.
The full box score and advanced stats from this game can be found here.
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