Florida Panthers rally again but fall in overtime to St. Louis Blues to start road trip

And for the fourth consecutive game, the Florida Panthers rallied in the third period.

But unlike the three times before it, they couldn’t come away with the win.

Pavel Buchnevich beat Spencer Knight on a wraparound 53 seconds into overtime as the St. Louis Blues beat the Florida Panthers 4-3 on Tuesday at Enterprise Center.

Jonathan Huberdeau tied the game with about five and a half minutes left to force overtime and allow the Panthers (17-4-4) to pick up a point to begin their three-game road trip.

The Panthers are now 3-3-4 on the road this season and have lost each of their last seven (three in regulation, two in overtime, two in shootouts).

Aleksander Barkov, playing in his first game in three weeks after being sidelined with a left knee injury, needed three shifts to get on the scoresheet. He took a feed from Maxim Mamin and sent a backhanded shot past Ville Husso to give Florida a 1-0 lead 6:49 into the game.

But the excitement of Barkov’s return didn’t last through the end of the game. Barkov left the game in the third period with an unspecified injury

“A little tweak,” interim coach Andrew Brunette said afterward with little specifics other than that it wasn’t related to his knee injury and that he will be evaluated.

It was the only goal in an otherwise dominant opening period for the Panthers, who outshot the Blues 20-5 and had a 20-1 edge in scoring chances in the first 20 minutes.

The second period? St. Louis (13-8-4) flipped the script. The Blues had a 16-10 edge in scoring chances and scored twice in the frame. Vladimir Tarasenko slapped one past Knight from the right circle 4:20 into the period and Brayden Schenn re-directing a feed from Tarasenko in front of the net on a power play with 6:26 left in the frame. The Panthers’ Brandon Montour scored a goal in between the St. Louis tallies.

“We weren’t ourselves,” Huberdeau said, “and they took advantage of that.”

Brunette added: “Our whole game got a little cute there in the second period.”

Brandon Saad then gave St. Louis its first lead of the game when he tipped in an Ivan Barbashev shot with 13:12 left in regulation before the Panthers’ latest rally momentarily brought them back into the game before losing in overtime.

Knight had 26 saves on 30 shots on goal.

The Panthers continue their three-game road trip against the Arizona Coyotes on Friday before wrapping up with the Colorado Avalanche on Sunday.