Hagman, Kessel Score 2 Goals Each As Leafs Beat Panthers 6-4
Posted November 27, 2009 10:36 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Niklas Hagman and Phil Kessel each scored two goals to lift the Toronto Maple Leafs to a 6-4 victory over the Florida Panthers on Friday night.
Alexei Ponikarovsky had a goal and an assist, Matt Stajan added an empty-netter with four seconds remaining, and Jonas Gustavsson stopped 26 shots.
Dmitry Kulikov scored twice for Florida, and Radek Dvorak and Michael Frolik had goals early in the first period. Tomas Vokoun made 27 saves for the Panthers, who have lost three straight.
Hagman beat Vokoun with a shot at 12:26 in the third period to make it 5-4 and give the Maple Leafs, coming off a 4-3 victory in Tampa Bay on Wednesday night, their first lead of the night.
Kulikov scored on the power play at 4:07 in the third to put the Panthers up 4-3, but Kessel again tied the game 13 seconds later with his eighth goal of the season.
Kulikov put the Panthers up 3-2 with his first goal of the night at 8:11 in the second period. Nathan Horton fed the puck to Kulikov, and he sent a slap shot by Gustavsson to snap a 2-2 tie. But with 5:27 left in the second, Ponikarovsky tied the game again with a power-play goal.
The Maple Leafs had evened the score at 2 with Hagman’s first goal of the night, which came at 2:30 in the second period. Hagman took a pass from Ponikarovsky and tipped in the puck. Kessel’s first goal of the night came with 7:43 left in the first period. He beat defenceman Keith Ballard then put the puck past Vokoun to make it 2-1.
Dvorak opened the scoring at 1:11 in the first period. About a minute later, at 2:04 in the first, Michael Frolik added a power-play goal to make it 2-0.
