Luongo earns 400th win, Panthers top Hurricanes 6-1
SUNRISE, Fla. (AP) Roberto Luongo and Jaromir Jagr reached some career milestones - and helped the Florida Panthers keep their faint playoff hopes alive.
Luongo earned his 400th win, and Jagr had a goal and an assist to tie Ron Francis for fourth place on the NHL's career points list to lift the Panthers over the Carolina Hurricanes 6-1 on Thursday night.
The Panthers remained six points behind the Boston Bruins and three points behind the Ottawa Senators with four games left to play for the final playoff spot. The Bruins and Senators each won on Thursday.
''It's not over yet,'' Jagr said. ''We knew it before this game. We have to win our games and hope for a miracle.''
Luongo made 31 saves to become the 11th NHL goalie to record 400 wins as the Panthers recorded their largest margin of victory this season. With his two points against the Hurricanes, Jagr has 1,798.
The Panthers were coming off a 3-2 loss to the Bruins on Tuesday, with the winning goal scored with just 1:09 left in the game.
''I would have liked to get it maybe a few games earlier and maybe get a few more points in the standings,'' Luongo said. ''Right now, it's not something that I'm really focused on, but I'm blessed to I've been able to play in this league for so long.''
Vincent Trocheck scored two third-period goals and had an assist, and Aleksander Barkov, Brandon Pirri and Willie Mitchell also scored for Florida. Jonathan Huberdeau had two assists, helping the Panthers to their third straight home victory.
''We've got five games here at home and we went into it tonight thinking that we're still in this race,'' Trocheck said. ''We've just got to keep winning games and play our game, and that's what we did tonight.''
Chris Terry scored a late goal and Anton Khudobin stopped 29 shots for the Hurricanes, who have lost eight of their past 11 games - including their most lopsided defeat of the season.
''We had a couple chances early that Luongo made some good saves on,'' Hurricanes center Eric Staal said. ''From there, it didn't get very pretty.''
Leading 1-0, the Panthers blew the game open with three goals in the second period.
Pirri got a loose puck in the right circle, spun around and fired a shot that went off Khudobin's pad and into the net for his 22nd goal of the season at 5:01 of the second. Pirri has nine goals in his last 11 games, and 19 in the past 26 games.
Jagr's goal gave the Panthers a 3-0 lead. Barkov passed the puck from behind the net to Jagr in the slot and he one-timed it past Khudobin at 13:01 of the second. Jagr has 14 points in 16 games since joining the Panthers.
Barkov made it 4-0 when he grabbed his own rebound and put it behind Khudobin's pads with 3:33 left in the second.
Trocheck scored two goals in a span of 38 seconds in the third. His shot from the point beat Khudobin at 6:07 of the third, and then he poked in a loose puck from in front to make it 6-0.
Terry's power-play goal for Carolina came with 1:19 left in the game. Terry has four points in four games.
The Panthers took a 1-0 lead on Mitchell's goal with 49.4 seconds left in the first.
NOTES: Panthers D Brian Campbell played his 300th consecutive regular-season game. ... Scottie Upshall missed the game with a hand injury. ... Hurricanes forward Riley Nash missed his third game with an upper-body injury.
