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It was a wasted start for Luongo, who was peppered with 40 shots and surrendered two goals.
“We had some chances, we just didn’t do anything with them,” said Jaromir Jagr, part of a Panthers team that mustered just 14 shots on goal in the first two periods and 24 overall.
Anaheim, which took all four available points from the Panthers in the two meetings this month, played big up front and clogged things up for a Florida team coach Gerard Gallant said “wanted no part” of the Ducks’ physical style.
Luongo faced 30 shots in a scoreless game before Anaheim’s Cam Fowler sent a shot that squeezed its way through Luongo’s skates for a 1-0 lead with 3:21 left in the second.
Desperate to get anything going, Gallant changed up all four of his lines to put a little pressure on Anaheim goalie Frederik Andersen, who was pulled from his previous start after giving up three goals in 10 minutes.
Gallant’s changes worked at times, but Florida still looked slow and lifeless as Anaheim tried to put things away when Andrew Cogliano scored on a 2-on-1 short-handed chance with 5:19 left.
Florida’s Sasha Barkov gave the Panthers a chance at some more late-minute heroics when he cut the deficit in half by driving in and firing a wrist shot that clipped Andersen and found its way to the back of the net.
Barkov’s goal wasn’t near enough as Luongo came out of the net to allow Florida an extra attacker, yet the Ducks ended it with an empty-net goal.
The Ducks, who stole victory from the Panthers on Nov. 4 with a last-second goal to force overtime, had lost four of their previous five.
With the Rangers coming to town Saturday, the Panthers sure could have used this one.
▪ Defenseman Dmitry Kulikov will not require surgery on his injured knee and should only be out of the lineup for the next few weeks.
Kulikov was injured Saturday in Tampa when he was boarded by the Lightning’s J.T. Brown.
▪ Luongo had gone 111 minutes 43 seconds between goals before the Ducks scored late in the second period on Thursday. Luongo had not surrendered a goal since midway through the third period Saturday in Tampa and stopped 76 consecutive shots.