Florida Panthers forward Sam Bennett left early in the second period of his team’s 3-2 overtime win over the Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday night with an upper-body injury.
When Bennett, who scored in Game 2 as the Panthers took a 2-0 lead in this Eastern Conference quarterfinal series, exited the ice, he appeared to be holding his wrist. He went directly toward the Panthers locker room as soon as he skated off the ice.
Florida coach Paul Maurice did not have an update in his postgame media availability other than to say, “We’ll take a look at him [Wednesday] and we’ll have an update.”
Vladimir Tarasenko also scored the winning goal for the Panthers from Carter Verhaeghe, who lifted a backhander just under the crossbar 2:59 into overtime. It was the fifth overtime winner in Verhaeghe’s career, coming on a play where Matthew Tkachuk got the puck to Anton Lundell, who found Verhaeghe. He waited for Tampa Bay goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy to commit, then put the puck over him to end it.
Bennett opened the scoring 6:16 into the primary time frame with helps from Tkachuk and Verhaeghe. Before the injury, he also assisted on Tarasenko’s goal.
He finished the game with 7:42 of playing time before leaving. The veteran 27-year-old focus, who ordinarily plays on Florida’s subsequent line, completed the standard season with 20 objectives and 41 focuses.
The Panthers came within two victories of defeating their state rivals for the first time in three postseason series with the victory, as Bennett’s teammate Sergei Bobrovsky made 21 stops, some of which were highlight reel stops.
