The road heading into the new year is starting to get bumpy for the Florida Panthers who dropped their 3rd straight game 5-2 to the Montreal Canadiens. The Panthers were undone on Monday night by Montreal defenseman Maxim Lapierre who scored a hat trick to lead Montreal to victory.

Michael Frolik opened the scoring at 5:18 of the 1st period, putting Florida ahead 1-0. Montreal answered at 10:27 on the power play to tie the game 1-1. In the 2nd period Montreal quickly grabbed the lead 2-1, scoring just 1:30 into the 2nd. David Booth tied the game back up at 2-2, scoring his 15 goal of the season. Montreal would take the lead for good 3-2 with Lapierre’s 1st of 3 goals.

The 3rd period was all Montreal as Lapierre would score 2 more goals, including an empty netter with 7 seconds left, to seal a 5-2 victory.

Florida’s run of poor play continues as they can’t seem to play solid defense or get decent goaltending anymore. Montreal’s final goal was the result of defenseman Bryan McCabe being stripped of the puck in his own end. Craig Anderson started in net for Florida but was pulled after allowing 4 goals on 20 shots.

On the plus side, Florida is still playing good offense and scoring goals. David Booth has been on a hot streak lately, he’s scored 3 goals in the past 2 games. Florida is young and the team should be expected to have bumps along the way. They are more than capable of finding their winning ways again.