Cole Reinhardt just made the Panthers' last roster spot his to lose

Cole Reinhardt has about three preseason games left to win a job, and he used the first one to make the decision harder for everyone upstairs. Two goals, a team-high seven hits, and a fourth line that looked like it belonged in Sunday's 6-3 win over Carolina.

The first goal came at 4:06 of the second period. Jack Devine found him in the high slot and Reinhardt put it top shelf on Pyotr Kochetkov to make it 3-1. Eight minutes later he was parked at the net front and tipped one home for the 4-3 lead. Same guy, two completely different jobs, both executed properly.

Why it matters

Florida's roster is mostly written in pen. Per Florida Hockey Now's Alex Baumgartner, the top nine forwards, top seven defensemen and both goalies are set. Lars Eller and Garnet Hathaway have the fourth line's middle and one wing. That leaves one fourth-line wing and two extra spots, and Reinhardt is swinging at the wing.

He's got a head start. The Panthers claimed him off waivers from Vegas on March 6 and he played 15 games down the stretch, scoring six goals. Five of those came in the final four games of the season. Sunday's pair stretched his goal streak to five straight games dating back to the end of last season, per NHL.com.

That's an unusual production line for a 26-year-old sixth-round pick who arrived with 62 NHL games on his resume. It's also precisely the kind of thing that gets noticed in an abbreviated camp with, as Paul Maurice put it, "not a lot of runway."

Ferda take

The goals will get the attention. The seven hits are the actual resume.

Maurice doesn't distribute fourth-line minutes based on shooting ability. He distributes them to guys who finish checks, stay on the right side of the puck and don't turn a defensive-zone shift into a track meet.

"He can shoot the puck, and he showed that last year," Maurice told FHN. "But he played a really, really smart game today." Read that second sentence twice. That's the evaluation that gets you dressed on opening night.

Reinhardt also knows the room, and that's not nothing in a camp this short. "You're not shaking 100 hands on the first day," he said. He rode a line with Cole Schwindt and Devine, and the three of them played like they'd been together since July.

The chirp here isn't aimed at him. It's aimed at Vegas, which put a guy on waivers in March who has now scored in five straight NHL games for someone else. Somebody in that front office is very quiet about it.

What's next

The Panthers are in Raleigh tonight for the rematch at 7 p.m., then Tampa Bay twice: Thursday on the road and Saturday at home. Carolina is planning a prospect-heavy lineup under the new CBA's eight-veteran minimum, so there's an opportunity for Reinhardt to be the most physical player on the ice again.

He can't score in every game. He can hit in every game. If he keeps doing the second thing, the first thing is a bonus, and the job is his to lose.