Jonathan Drouin leads surging Avalanche past Panthers

Jonathan Drouin scored his first two goals of the season, leading the Colorado Avalanche to a 7-4 win over the host Florida Panthers on Saturday night in Sunrise.

Mikko Rantanen also scored for Colorado, giving him 10 goals in his past nine games. He also had three assists.

Cale Makar added two assists, and goalie Alexandar Georgiev made 27 saves for his fifth straight win.

Logan O'Connor, Samuel Girard, Oliver Kylington and Valeri Nichushkin (empty-netter) also scored for the Avalanche, who are 6-1-0 in their past seven games.

Carter Verhaeghe, Aleksander Barkov, Sam Reinhart and Anton Lundell scored for the Panthers, who are 1-5-0 in their past six games.

Reinhart extended his points streak to 13 games. During that streak, he has 11 goals and eight assists. He started the night tied for the NHL lead with 15 goals.

Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky made 18 saves, but he allowed a season-high six goals.

Florida opened the scoring just 52 seconds into the game on Verhaeghe's bad-angle shot from the bottom of the right circle. His high shot to the near side seemed to surprise Georgiev.

Colorado tied the score with 9:13 elapsed in the first on Drouin's deflection off a shot by Makar. As Bobrovsky surged forward, the puck trickled in behind him.

The Panthers went ahead 2-1 with 15:46 gone in the first as Barkov slapped down a rebound that bounced off of Georgiev's right shoulder. The play started with a point shot by Niko Mikkola and Matthew Tkachuk's deflection.

Colorado tied the score with just 34 seconds gone in the second as Makar found Drouin skating laterally in front of the crease. Drouin scored on an open backhander.

The Avalanche took a 3-2 lead with 15:56 left in the second as Kylington's stretch pass hit O'Connor in stride for a breakaway goal.

Colorado made it 5-2 on goals by Girard and Rantanen.

Then, with 1:20 left in the second, Reinhart scored a power-play goal on his deflection off a pass from Aaron Ekblad.

With 15:43 left in the third, Florida had a 5-on-3 power play when a shot by Ekblad hit the net. However, the officials wiped out the goal due to Tkachuk standing in the crease for a goalie-interference call.

Florida challenged the ruling, lost on video review, and the rest of the power play was fruitless.

Kylington then put the game away with his top-shelf goal for 6-3 with 4:11 left.

--Field Level Media