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Anton Lundell Hat Trick Fuels Florida Panthers To Third Straight Victory
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- Anton Lundell Hat Trick Fuels Florida Panthers To Third Straight Victory
For the second time in the young NHL season, the Florida Panthers have won three games in a row.
Florida jumped out a 2-0 lead and never looked back, taking down the Winnipeg Jets for the second time this week, this time by a final score of 5-2.
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The first score of the game came the same way Florida has scored many of their goals lately; on the power play.
After a strong sequence of passing to set themselves up in Winnipeg's zone, the puck found its way to Sam Reinhart along the goal line to the right of Nico Daws.
When no Jets player came to Reinhart, he calmly took a step above the goal line, changed the angle of his shot and fired the puck past Daws, who was down in the RVH covering the near post.
Florida took the 1-0 lead into the second period, where they quickly added to their advantage.
This time it was Anton Lundell, walking into the Jets' zone and sending a long wrist shot past Daws, who was being screened by Eetu Luostarinen.
The two-goal lead didn't last long for Florida, though.
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A questionable call on a delay of game penalty taken by Dmitry Kulikov was challenged by Panthers head coach Paul Maurice, and replay appeared to show the puck hitting off Cole Koepke's stick, but after a long review, officials came on the mic and announced the call was confirmed.
To their credit, Florida nearly pulled off a kill of the full two-minute 5-on-3, but Kyle Connor snuck a shot over Akira Schmid's glove to put the Jets on the scoreboard.
It didn't take long for the Panthers to restore their two-goal advantage, and they did it with another power play goal.
Defenseman Seth Jones continued his torrid start to the season by firing a laser of a wrist shot from between the circles that beat Daws with 4:36 left in the middle frame.
Despite the Jets adding a third period goal to cut Florida's lead back to one, the Panthers kept their skate on the gas and picked up another crucial insurance goal.
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Florida's fourth goal came at even strength, with Lundell popping home a Lars Eller rebound to give the Cats a 4-2 lead with 6:27 to go.
For Lundell, it was his second goal of the night and third of the season, ending a six-game scoring drought.
But he wasn't done there.
With Daws on the Winnipeg bench for an extra attacker, Lundell scored from about 150 feet away to log the first hat trick of his career.
Fittingly, the assists came from his countrymen, Luostarinen and Niko Mikkola.
It was also Florida's fifth hat trick of the season, which is only 14 games old.
How rare is that? According to Panthers play-by-play voice Steve Goldstein , the Cats are the first time in 104 years to log that many hat tricks in that few amount of games.
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The win improved Florida's record to 8-4-2.
They will now look to win a fourth straight when their homestand continues on Monday night against Detroit.
On to the Red Wings.
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Carter Verhaeghe, Tkachuk Brothers Power Panthers Past Winnipeg
Photo caption: Oct 30, 2026; Sunrise,Florida, USA;FloridaPantherscenter Anton Lundell (15) celebrates with goaltender Akira Schmid (40) after the game against the Winnipeg Jets at Amerant Bank Arena. (Sam Navarro-Imagn Images)
