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Florida Panthers forward Sam Bennett will miss at least a week with an upper-body injury suffered in the second period of his team's 3-2 overtime win over the Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday night. When Bennett, who scored in Game 2 as the Panthers took a 2-0 lead in this Eastern Conference quarterfinal series, exited the ice, he appeared to be holding his wrist. He went directly toward the Panthers' locker room as soon as he skated off the ice. Florida coach Paul Maurice said the injury to the second-line center was not as severe as the team originally feared. "Better than we originally thought ... out at least a week and will go from there," Maurice said. Vladimir Tarasenko also scored the winning goal for the Panthers from Carter Verhaeghe, who lifted a backhander just under the crossbar 2:59 into overtime. It was the fifth overtime winner in Verhaeghe's career, coming on a play where Matthew Tkachuk got the puck to Anton Lundell, who found Verhaeghe. He waited for Tampa Bay goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy to commit, then put the puck over him to end it. Bennett opened the scoring 6:16 into the first period with assists from Tkachuk and Verhaeghe. He also assisted on Tarasenko's goal before the injury. He ended up playing a total of 7:42 of game time before leaving. The veteran 27-year-old center finished the regular season with 20 goals and 41 points. In the win, Bennett's teammate Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 21 shots, including some highlight-reel saves as the Panthers moved within two wins of defeating their state rivals for the first time in three postseason series. Field Level Media and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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