from Kevin Paul Dupont of the Boston Globe,

The Panthers woke up Tuesday in first place overall, for the first time since Dec. 28, 1996. The span of 24-plus years (8,844 days, to be exact) between stints atop the NHL, after a minimum of three games, is the longest in league history. Only Detroit, playing as the Motown Dead Wings from 1974-95, went 20 years or more without reaching No. 1 on the charts.

Entering the weekend, Florida hadn’t lost two in a row all season. Captain Aleksander Barkov is a Hart Trophy candidate. Aaron Ekblad is finally living up to his draft billing. Tampa Bay castoff Carter Verhaeghe and backup netminder Chris Driedger have been pleasant surprises.

Vatrano, meanwhile, was one one of six Panthers to hit the 10-goal mark by the midway point of the season. Both of his linemates — rookie Owen Tippett, 22, and Eetu Luostarinen, 22 — were born after the Year of the Rat, but this isn’t a rookie party. Keith Yandle, 34, still has offensive game. Barkov, Ekblad, and Jonathan Huberdeau are each about halfway to 1,000 career games. Hard-to-play-against factor comes from veterans Patric Hornqvist (scoring at a 67-point pace and annoying opponents nightly), Radko Gudas, and Noel Acciari.

If the club’s newly formed department of goaltending excellence, headed by Francois Allaire and Roberto Luongo, can get something out of Sergei Bobrovsky, so much the better. He’s currently a league-average netminder making $10 million. Then again, Bobrovsky might wind up being someone else’s issue. The Panthers have one of the brightest prospects around in Boston College’s Spencer Knight.

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