The Florida Panthers used a 3 goal 3rd period on Thursday night to defeat the Carolina Hurricanes and pick up their 2nd straight win. Tomas Vokoun made 31 saves to keep his team in the game until the offense awoke in the 3rd period to break a tie and deliver victory for the Panthers.

Late in the 1st period Florida would strike first with David Booth scoring his team leading 17th goal of the season to put the Panthers up 1-0. 3:35 later the Hurricanes would strike back to tie the game at 1-1. the 2nd period would be dominated by the Panthers, but no one found the back of the net and the game headed to the 3rd tied at 1-1.

The Panthers offense would arrive in the 3rd period, just in time to break the 1-1 tie. All Star Jay Bouwmeester scored 31 seconds into the 3rd to put Florida ahead 2-1. Nathan Horton would score less than 3 minutes later to extend Florida’s lead to 3-1. The Panthers appeared to be on their way to a comfortable victory until Carolina scored to make it 3-2 with just under 5 minutes to go. Gregory Campbell would put the Hurricanes away for good with an empty net goal with 36 seconds left to give Florida the 4-2 victory.

Last night’s win breaks Florida’s recent trend of win-loss-win-loss. More importantly than breaking that trend, the team put together back to back games of solid effort, something that was key to their great play in early December, and a factor that has been lacking in the two weeks since that fantastic run. Hopefully they can build on this momentum over the weekend.