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 MacKenzie played 412 games scattered across 12 seasons in his NHL
career prior to Tuesday night, scoring 37 career goals, and only
once had he enjoyed the kind of game he did against the St. Louis
Blues.
MacKenzie scored two goals in the second period to lead the Panthers
to a 3-1 win over the Blues, giving Florida its first three-game
winning streak of the season.
The Panthers also broke a six-game losing streak to the Blues that
dated back to Oct. 31, 2009.
The only other time in his career MacKenzie scored two goals in a
game was on March 12, 2011, when he was playing for the Columbus
Blue Jackets against the Carolina Hurricanes.
"I certainly didn't expect coming into this game for that to
happen," said MacKenzie, whose only previous goal this season came
on Oct. 20. "It's a bonus, and to come up with a win against a team
like this, I'm happy for the guys."
MacKenzie's first goal of the night came just 13 seconds after the
Panthers took a 1-0 lead on a goal from left winger Brandon Pirri
off a breakaway 12:18 into the second period.
A turnover by Blues left winger Steve Ott left MacKenzie alone with
the puck in front of the St. Louis net, and his shot beat goalie
Jake Allen for a 2-0 lead.
The Blues got one of those goals back just 21 seconds later from
center David Backes before MacKenzie got his second unassisted goal
of the night with 3:19 left in the period after another Blues
turnover.
"He's a hard-working guy, and you see him every night he works
hard," Panthers coach Gerard Gallant said. "He's mostly a
penalty-killer and a fourth-line guy that does a good job for us,
and tonight he got rewarded from working real hard and picked off
some plays."
It was turnovers -- three of which led to the Florida goals -- that
upset Blues coach Ken Hitchcock.
"It's disappointing," Hitchcock said. "You can't play sideways and
expect to score goals in this league. You've got to really play to
the net, and when you play the way we're playing right now, you're
not going to have much success.
"We tried to make crazy things happen when there was nothing there,
and we paid the price dearly because of it."
Said Ott, "It was real sloppy, a lot of turnovers, myself included.
You kind of chase the game when you turn the puck over as much as we
did tonight.
"It's one of those games you've just got to throw out the window and
regroup quickly. We just didn't have it tonight. Drop this game, put
it away and go on to the next one."
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Getting the two goals even allowed MacKenzie and his teammates to
joke about the goal he didn't score. Early in the second period,
with the game scoreless, he had a short-handed breakaway but fired
the shot directly at Allen.
"Guys were making fun of him a little bit after his breakaway that
he shot right in (Allen's) chest, but after that, he turned it up to
beast mode and buried a couple there, " said Florida goalie Roberto
Luongo, who made 29 saves.
After the missed opportunity, MacKenzie had no way to predict how
the rest of his night would go.
"Obviously, I came to the bench and was pretty disappointed," he
said. "I thought that could have broken the game open a little bit
and get us some momentum. I never know how they go in, they just
went in today. I thought our line deserved it. I think that was just
kind of carryover to the hard work those guys put in."
Allen was replaced after the second period, having allowed three
goals on 15 shots. Brian Elliott entered and stopped all eight shots
he faced.
NOTES: Five players in the Blues' lineup Tuesday night were not even
born when Panthers RW Jaromir Jagr, now 43, made his NHL debut on
Oct. 5, 1990. By the time Blues' 19-year-old rookie LW Robby Fabbri
was born, Jagr had scored 197 NHL goals. ... The Panthers inserted
RW Dave Bolland and LW Shawn Thornton into their lineup, scratching
RW Logan Shaw and C Nick Bjugstad, who has an upper-body injury. ...
Healthy scratches for the Blues were RW Dmitij Jaskin, C Scott Gomez
and D Robert Bortuzzo. ... The Panthers said D Dmitry Kulikov (lower
body injury) likely will play either Thursday at Nashville or Friday
at Columbus. ... The Blues will play 11 of their 16 games in
December at home.
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