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Dec 23, 2023, 06:42 PM ET
SUNRISE, Fla. — 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 loss to the St. Louis Blues on Thursday night here. That followed a 1-3 road trip and a lull in an otherwise promising season for the 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.
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“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 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 of play, and Florida had 29 of the game’s first 30 tries to get a puck on goal.
And there were clearly memories of what happened last June, particularly the hit from Vegas’ Keegan Kolesar that left Tkachuk with a…
Source link : https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/39175051/florida-panthers-outlast-vegas-golden-knights-cup-rematch
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Publish date : 2023-12-23 23:51:15
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