Hurricanes Blank Panthers; G Luongo Leaves Game

[March 28, 2014]  SUNRISE, Fla. — Hurricanes 3, Panthers 0: Anton Khudobin turned aside 35 shots for his first shutout of the season as visiting Carolina beat Florida for the fourth straight time.

Jiri Tlusty scored a pair of goals and Jeff Skinner also tallied as the Hurricanes won for only the sixth time in 17 games. Khudobin made 25 saves over the final two periods to earn his third career shutout and first since March 31, 2013, as a member of Boston.

Roberto Luongo stopped 11 of 12 shots in the first period before giving way to Dan Ellis after he was involved in a collision with Radek Dvorak and removed for precautionary reasons. Ellis made 18 saves as the Panthers lost for the fourth time in five games.

Tlusty showed great patience on his first goal, waiting for Luongo to go down before beating him from the bottom of the right circle just past the nine-minute mark of the opening period.

The Hurricanes doubled the lead 2 1/2 minutes into the second period when Tlusty whipped a rebound of Andrei Loktionov's shot past Ellis for his 14th goal. Skinner added to the lead just over three minutes later at the end of a 2-on-1 break when Patrick Dwyer collected his own rebound and, from the behind the net, fed Skinner for an easy scoop from the right side.

GAME NOTEBOOK: Dvorak received a game misconduct and five-minute charging penalty for barreling into Luongo with just over seven minutes left in the opening period. ... Panthers D Tom Gilbert underwent season-ending hernia surgery on Thursday. ... Skinner scored for the second straight game to give him 28 goals, three shy of his career-best total set in his rookie season of 2010-11.

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