Bizarre moment Florida Panthers coach Paul Maurice is forced COUNT the remaining players on his bench after a dramatic night of fights resulted in THIRTEEN ejections

In a bizarre scene Monday in Ottawa, Florida Panthers head coach Paul Maurice was forced to take a head count on his bench after losing much of his active roster to in-game misconduct in a gruesome 5-0 win over the Senators.

A total of thirteen players were sent off that evening, ten of them after a melee in the third period.

Things got heated when Senators left wing Brady Tkachuk had a near breakaway with just under eight minutes left and Ottawa trailed 4-0. But when he connected with Florida netminder Sergei Bobrovsky, everyone on the ice seemed to jump into the fray.

Tkachuk’s brother, Matthew, actually plays for the Panthers and was assessed an unsportsmanlike penalty earlier in the game for fighting Ottawa’s Jake Sanderson and Zack MacEwan, the latter of whom was also ejected. Later, Florida’s Sam Bennett and Ottawa’s Mathieu Joseph were ejected, bringing the total to 13 ejections, while the two teams combined for 167 penalty minutes.

An irritated Maurice was seen on the bench frantically doing a head count as he tried to regroup for the final seven minutes of action. Later, the decorated 56-year-old coach said he thought his team’s 83 penalty minutes were ‘mild’.

As for the game, Sam Reinhart scored two goals and Bobrovsky made 20 saves to help the reigning Eastern Conference champion Panthers break their two-game losing streak.

Bobrovsky’s second shutout of the season and career-high No. 40 helped Matthew Tkachuk edge his brother Brady.

Ottawa struggled early and never managed to get on even terms with the Panthers. Joonas Korpisalo stopped 33 shots after missing the last two games with a minor injury.

Trailing 3-0 in the third period, the Senators started to pick up their game, but they also let their emotions get the better of them.

“You know, I just thought we came up with some really good teams at 3-0. We were aggressive. We were, you know, in the game, there was a lot of game left and then we take a five-minute major and that takes you right out of the game,” Senators coach DJ Smith said.

Matthew Tkachuk clearly put himself in the shoes of his younger brother Brady’s teammates. MacEwen jumped on Matthew and was given a five-minute match penalty. Sanderson also later dropped the gloves against Matthew Tkachuk.

“I mean, I don’t think it’s a bad thing to play with emotion,” Brady Tkachuk said. “I think when this group plays with emotion, we’re a tough team to beat and I think we rely on our emotion and it shows that we care, shows that we care about what we’re doing here and about the man next to us. us.’

Brady Tkachuk also got in the middle and was in the penalty area for a cross-check when Verhaeghe made it 4-0 at 11:59.

Luostarinen rounded out the scoring with 3:28 remaining.

Reinhart helped Florida get off to a fast start with two power-play goals. He got his first just 1:28 into the game, then made it 2-0 with his 15th of the season (5:59 into the second).

The Senators challenged Reinhart’s second goal for offside, but it stayed in place after a lengthy review and Bennett made it 3-0 on the ensuing power play.

“The first couple of special teams put us in a good position,” Reinhart said. “We came out with a playoff mentality and tried to get our power play going a little bit.”

The win allowed the Panthers to snap a two-game losing skid as they started three consecutive road games within the division.

“It’s good that our power play, our special teams, got us the win in the end,” Maurice said. ‘Our goalkeeper made a few saves that he had to make to keep things going. But our penalty was just as good as our power play tonight and that’s how we won the game.”