SUNRISE, Florida (Ticker) -- The Carolina Hurricanes are the latest team to find out Kristian Huselius makes his first shot count.
Huselius snapped a tie 7 1/2 minutes into the third period and the Florida Panthers went on to post a season-opening 3-1 victory over the Hurricanes.
Held without a shot through two periods, Huselius took Valeri Bure's pass in the right faceoff circle and waited for Carolina defenseman Sean Hill to slide by. Gliding across the slot, Huselius held the puck until goaltender Kevin Weekes committed and put a shot into an open net to give Florida a 2-1 lead.
"Bure took the puck and made a great pass to me," Huselius said. "I knew the time in which what I had to do. I just tried to fake the defenseman and the goalie at the same time. I had some patience in my mind and it was good."
"Kristian is a goal-scorer, and that's what goal-scorers are capable of doing," said Florida coach Mike Keenan, whose team posted three of its eight home wins last season against Carolina. "They can mesmerize a goaltender, freeze a goaltender and have the patience to wait and out-patient the goaltender. He was really sharp on that play."
Huselius has scored on his first shot in each of the last three seasons.
Roberto Luongo made the goal stand, coming up with eight of his 31 saves in the third period. He spoiled Danny Markov's bid to tie it with 85 seconds remaining, making a blocker save after the defenseman received a cross-slot pass and fired a shot from alone on the left side.
"It was a key save that Roberto made, I think it was on Markov," Keenan said. "That was the game-saving play. ... That was a save that made all the difference in the game."
"We had a good defensive effort tonight," Luongo said. "They didn't have that much scoring chances. We didn't give any odd-man rushes, and that's a key when you want to keep the goals-against down."
Erik Cole ruined Luongo's shutout bid, scoring with 15 seconds to go in the second period.
Florida opened the scoring midway through the first period as Niklas Hagman took a feed from Mikael Samuelsson in the left circle, drove to the net and slid the puck between Weekes' pads.
But with time winding down in the second, Josef Vasicek corraled a rebound down low and backhanded a pass across the slot. Standing alone on the left side, Cole deposited the puck into a vacant net to knot the game, 1-1.
"We were tied going into the third period," Hurricanes defenseman Glen Wesley said. "We were in a very good situation."
Viktor Kozlov secured the victory for the Panthers, netting an empty-net goal with 49 seconds left for his 265th point with Florida, one shy of third place on the club's all-time list.
The game between the Southeast Division rivals also featured two of the top three picks in this year's draft. Carolina's Staal, who was taken second overall, skated on a line with veterans Ron Francis and Jeff O'Neill.
"It's unbelievable," Staal said. "Francis is the future Hall of Famer and O'Neill scores 30 goals a year. To play with those guys is pretty awesome and it's exciting."
"I think he got better as the game went on, and it was a learning experience for him," Hurricanes coach Paul Maurice said. "I am sure he is going to continue to get better."
Third overall pick Nathan Horton was given a turn on Florida's second unit.
"It was exciting," Horton said of his NHL debut. "It was fun to be out there and fun to be part of it. I kept working hard out there."
"I think Nathan will continue to grow with his development in terms of the ice time that he can be given and the responsibility he can be given," Keenan said. "He was active tonight, he had a lot of jump. So there was no reason not to give him that opportunity."
