Anthony Stolarz shuts out Sabres as Florida Panthers win 10th consecutive road game

The Florida Panthers had just shut out the Buffalo Sabres, posting a 4-0 win on Thursday at KeyBank Center, but coach Paul Maurice knew his team played far from a perfect game.

That can be expected in the second half of a back-to-back. Players don’t always have their legs under them. Speed and sharpness are down a tick. The team has to grind for a full 60 minutes. That was the case for the Panthers on Thursday.

Well, except for one player.

“Our goalie was good,” Maurice said, “and a lot of nights that’s all that matters.”

On this night, Maurice wasn’t talking about three-time All-Star and two-time Vezina Trophy winner Sergei Bobrovsky.

On this night, it was backup goaltender Anthony Stolarz putting up his best performance of the season in a season full of top performances in limited action.

Stolarz stopped all 45 shots that came his way to lead the Panthers to the shutout victory and the Panthers’ 10th consecutive road win.

“I just tried to stay focused,” said Stolarz, who improves to 9-5-2 on the season while seeing his goals against average drop to 1.97 and his save percentage increase to .926. “Tonight, [I was] just able to go out there and see the puck. The guys did a great job of moving guys in front. Any rebounds I gave up, they kind of cleared them out for me.”

The Panthers (35-15-4) are the 11th team in NHL history to have a road win streak of at least 10 games and the fourth over the past two seasons to accomplish the feat. The Los Angeles Kings had an 11-game road win streak earlier this season, while the New Jersey Devils and Colorado Avalanche also had 11-game road win streaks last season.

The NHL record is 12 games, done first by the Detroit Red Wings in the 2005-06 season and then matched by the Minnesota Wild in the 2014-15 season.

Their last road loss? Dec. 18 at the Calgary Flames.

“Gave up a shorthanded goal [but] played pretty well,” Maurice said, reflecting on that game from two months ago.

The win also moves the Panthers into first place in the Eastern Conference. They are tied with the Boston Bruins with 74 points but own the tiebreaker of most regulation wins (30 for Florida, compared to 26 for Boston).

With about two months left until the playoffs, the Panthers aren’t focused on the standings just yet.

“For us, it’s all about one game at a time,” forward Ryan Lomberg said. “We’ve had a couple winning streaks, a couple losing streaks. For us, every game and every night is one in its own. We come in to play the same way and work hard for the two points.”

On Thursday, that came down to a stellar effort from Stolarz.

Stolarz’s shutout was his first in 15 starts with the Panthers, the seventh of his career and first since April 1, 2022, while playing with the Anaheim Ducks. The 45 saves were the second-most he has recorded in a shutout, behind a 46-save effort in a blanking of the San Jose Sharks on April 12, 2021, while with Anaheim.

It was also the third-most saves in a shutout in franchise history, behind 53 by Craig Anderson on March 2, 2008, and 46 by James Reimer on March 15, 2018.

Of his 45 saves, 10 were against shots classified as high-danger by the advanced hockey statistics website Natural Stat Trick.

“He comes in when his number is called,” Lomberg said, “and he shuts the door.”

Carter Verhaeghe, Anton Lundell and Lomberg scored for Florida. Verhaeghe opened scoring midway through the first period after a strong forecheck from Aleksander Barkov led to a Sabres turnover and a prime scoring chance. He added an empty-net goal with 1:33 left in regulation to bring his season total to 28.

Lundell scored the goal in between Verhaeghe’s pair late in the second period when he deflected in a shot from Matthew Tkachuk on a delayed penalty. It was Lundell’s third goal in the past two games and now has seven on the season.

And Lomberg capped scoring with a power-play goal with 12 seconds left in regulation.

The Sabres fall to 23-26-4.

The Panthers close their three-game, four-day road trip on Saturday against the Tampa Bay Lightning. Puck drop is scheduled for 5 p.m.