Carter Verhaeghe and Sam Reinhart scored power-play goals 1:59 apart in the third period, and the Florida Panthers went into their Christmas break by topping the Vegas Golden Knights 4-2 on Saturday in a rematch of last season’s Stanley Cup Final.
The Panthers, who lost to the Knights in June as Vegas hoisted the Cup for the first time, responded after a disheartening 4-1 home loss to the St. Louis Blues on Thursday night. That followed a 1-3 road trip and a lull in an otherwise promising season for the defending Eastern Conference champions.
But Vegas brought the best out in the Panthers. Sam Bennett and Gustav Forsling also scored for Florida, and Matthew Tkachuk, Aleksander Barkov and Brandon Montour each finished with two assists. Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 23 shots in the win.
“They are a really good team, and they beat us last year, obviously,” Verhaeghe said. “So it was a little more emotional game, but we wanted to get back on track. And it was nice to get the win.”
Mark Stone and Pavel Dorofeyev scored for Vegas. The short-handed Golden Knights matched a season-worst by losing their third straight and are just 10-9-4 following an 11-0-1 start to their title defense.
“It’s probably a good time for the break,” Stone said. “This wasn’t our best road trip by any means. We didn’t play enough 60-minute hockey in those three games, but we’ve been through adversity before and we’ve got to come out of the other side of the break rested and recovered.”
Jiri Patera, starting in place of injured Adin Hill and Logan Thompson, stopped 38 shots for Vegas.
The Panthers came out flying, taking 15 of the game’s first 16 shots. Add in those shot attempts that missed the net or were blocked in the first 15 minutes and Florida had 29 of the game’s first 30 tries.
There were clearly memories of June, particularly the hit from Vegas’ Keegan Kolesar that left Tkachuk with a fractured sternum. Kolesar fought Florida’s Ryan Lomberg midway through the first period Saturday; the fight lasted exactly one punch, with Lomberg landing before Kolesar hit the ice.
“Every time we play them now, I think it’s definitely going to be a high-intensity kind of game,” Verhaeghe said.
Patera stoned Florida time and again despite the flurry of pucks headed his way, and then Stone opened the scoring early in the second.
Bennett tied it for Florida and Forsling scored to put the Panthers on top before Dorofeyev seemed to give Vegas a big shot of momentum by tying the score with 22.3 seconds left in the second period. He stayed locked in on a pass into the slot by Ben Hutton that hit the stick of Panthers defenseman Dmitry Kulikov then slid the deflected puck into the open side of the net.
“It had a bit of playoff feel,” Bennett said. “It was intense, lot of hitting, lot of physical play. I thought it was a really solid 60-minute game from our group.”
Verhaeghe’s goal from the high slot just 17 seconds into a power play put Florida on top for good, and Reinhart provided the insurance tally about two minutes later — with Tkachuk helping by perfectly screening Patera on the play.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
