SUNRISE, Fla. _ As much as hockey is a team game, the Florida Panthers have quite a few players with plenty of incentive to elevate their individual games.
That includes the most accomplished Panther, Jaromir Jagr, who let it be known he was feeling the burden of his own meager offensive output (two goals, nine points) through the first 20 games.
Coming off a brief Thanksgiving break, Jagr got the Panthers going with his third goal of the season Saturday against the Columbus Blue Jackets at the BB&T Center.
Frustration continued for others who have been struggling to score, and it took a shootout to secure a 2-1 victory before the Panthers embarked on a season-long six-game trip.
Linemate Aleskander Barkov remained without a goal for the 19th consecutive game, but the slick stick-handling Finn scored the shootout winner for the second time this week. Barkov put a backhander past Sergei Bobrovksy, and Roberto Luongo turned away Alexander Wennberg to seal the win.
Jonathan Marchessault had an open net early in OT but couldn't pull the trigger. Luongo made a couple of game-saving stand in the final seconds of the exra session.
Veteran enforcer Shawn Thornton, seeing action for only the first time this season, registered his first point with an assist on Jagr's goal.
"We know the team is missing the goals we score. With those, we would have a better record," Jagr said Friday, well aware that he and top-line center Aleksander Barkov had combined for only four goals.
Barkov made the pass that set up Jagr's goal.
The early goal stood up until 7:10 remaining when Brandon Saad backhanded a loose puck past Luongo just after a faceoff in the Florida zone. Mark Pysyk blocked a slap-shot from Cam Atkinson, but Saad made the second chance count to beat Luongo on the short side.
Luongo stifled one of the most potent offensive teams in the league for most of the night with 35 saves. Many of them were spectacular.
The Blue Jackets had already set a franchise record for points in November with 18 while tying their mark for the most wins in the month with eight after a 5-3 win the night before at Tampa Bay.
The last thing you want to do against the Blue Jackets is spend time in the penalty box. They lead the NHL in power-play efficiency, converting 29.4 percent of their opportunities before Saturday.
So 10 minutes in, the Panthers fell into the trap when Nick Bjugstad was sent off for interference. The penalty-kill unit did a commendable job of keeping the Jackets bottled up and limiting them to one harmless shot.
The Jackets are dangerous offensively in any situation, ranking second with an average of 3.21 goals per game. But it was Jagr who got just enough stick on a pass from Barkov to steer the puck under the left pad of Sergei Bobrovsky from the left circle at 16:45 of the opening period.
Thornton, who had just come on the ice, started the sequence with the initial shot that Bobrovsky stopped and received the secondary assist.
Thornton, in an interview on the Fox Sports Florida telecast during the second intermission, quipped, "Barky's been asking to play with me for three years, so I knew he wasn't going to waste those 15 seconds."
Levity aside, the Panthers had the lead after the first 20 minutes despite being outshot 12-6.
That goal loomed large through a scoreless second period. Barkov set up Jagr again early in the period with a pass from behind the net, but Bobrovsky smothered the shot.
The Panthers had two power-play opportunities that mustered only two shots on goal. Luongo withstood a late barrage on a Columbus power play that bridged the end of the second period and first minute of the third.
