Matthew Tkachuk stays hot with 3-point game, Florida goes into break with a 5-1 win over Ottawa

SUNRISE, Fla. — Matthew Tkachuk scored for a sixth consecutive game and added two assists, sparking a four-goal second period that lifted the Florida Panthers to a 5-1 win over the Ottawa Senators on Saturday night.

Aleksander Barkov had a goal and an assist while Sam Bennett, Gustav Forsling and Anton Lundell also scored for the Panthers, who got 26 saves from Sergei Bobrovsky to win for the fifth time in their last six games.

Brady Tkachuk scored for Ottawa, which got 43 saves from Linus Ullmark. It was the third time the Tkachuk brothers — soon to be USA Hockey teammates in the 4 Nations Face-Off tournament — had goals in the same game.

Takeaways

Senators: Ottawa has dropped three straight — and gave up at least four goals in all three of those losses. It's only the second time this season Ottawa has yielded at least four goals in three straight games. The other stretch was in mid-November.

Panthers: Florida had a four-goal period for the fourth time this season, also doing it on Oct. 8 against Boston (first), Nov. 30 against Carolina (third) and Jan. 25 at San Jose (second).

Key moment

Sam Reinhart assisted on Matthew Tkachuk's go-ahead power play goal in the second period for his 600th NHL point. He's the third current Panthers player to reach 600; Barkov and Tkachuk are the others.

Key stat

It was the fifth time Matthew Tkachuk had three points in a game against his brother. There have been 11 multi-point games in Tkachuk vs. Tkachuk matchups; Matthew has nine of them.

Up next

With the 4 Nations break, both teams are off until Feb. 22. The Senators play host to Montreal that night, and the Panthers play host to Seattle.

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AP NHL: https://www.apnews.com/hub/NHL