In Vancouver, the Florida Panthers defeated the Canucks, 2-1, on Friday, on Aleksander Barkov‘s deciding goal in the skills competition.

Spencer Knight made 27 saves in the Florida win.

“Not scoring can be frustrating, but staying with it and then just waiting for a chance, that’s the way it is sometimes,” Knight said. “We’re not going to score five goals every night. We’ve got to find different ways to win.”

Sam Reinhart was the striker for the Panthers in regulation.

“We’ve got a lot of players that can make a play, and if we make a play we have a chance to win,” Panthers head coach Andrew Brunette said. “Made a play on the power play, which is huge on the road, and then Spencer really allowed us a chance to get the extra point.”

Florida improved to 28-8-5.

“I thought it was a mature kind of road game,” Brunette said. “Back end of a back-to-back, [new Canucks coach] Bruce [Boudreau] has his team playing pretty hard and fast right now, and they came after us.”

Alex Chiasson was credited with the Canucks’ goal after pinballed off everyone but a kid a upper bowl.

“In the first and second period I’m pretty sure we out-chanced them and we could have built the lead up, but just didn’t,” Vancouver head coach Bruce Boudreau said. “They’ve got championship-caliber players on their team and they came through at the end.”

The Canucks fell to 18-18-4.

“I hope it gives them belief that when you play the right way — and we played the right way tonight — that you can play with anybody,” Boudreau said. “That’s pretty well what the message is. We played a hungry team tonight.”

Spencer Martin made 33 saves in the Vancouver loss. It was his first NHL game in five years.

“I wasn’t as amped up as I thought I’d be given how much it meant to me to get a game,” Martin said. “I just felt incredibly blessed to know how hard it is to get to this level. It’s hard to put into one answer but it felt incredible to get an opportunity.”

The Canucks’ Thatcher Demko and Jaroslav Halak are both in NHL COVID-19 protocol.