The two teams that played in the 2023 Stanley Cup Final seven months ago meet for the second time in less than two weeks on Thursday night when the defending champion Vegas Golden Knights face the Florida Panthers in Las Vegas.
Carter Verhaeghe and Sam Reinhart scored power-play goals 1:59 apart just about midway through the third period to fuel Florida to a 4-2 victory in the first matchup on Dec. 23 in Sunrise, Fla. That also took away some of the sting the Panthers experienced from losing in five games to the Golden Knights in the Final.
That victory also kick-started the Panthers’ second five-game winning streak of the season. Florida extended that streak with a 4-1 victory over the Coyotes on Tuesday in Tempe, Ariz., to open a four-game Western road trip that also includes stops at Colorado and St. Louis.
Reinhart and Matthew Tkachuk scored 42 seconds apart in the third period to give Florida a 3-1 lead against Arizona, and Sergei Bobrovsky made it stand up by stopping 21 of 22 shots for his 18th win of the season.
“It’s just always nice to win the first game and try and go from there,” Tkachuk said when asked if the win set a tone for the trip. “We’re going into a tough, hostile environment next game and going in with a winning streak is going to hopefully give us a little advantage.”
The Panthers will be playing a Vegas team that steamrolled to an 11-0-1 start to the season but has struggled lately, losing five of its past six games in regulation and six of its past eight to fall into second place in the Pacific Division behind Vancouver.
The Golden Knights are coming off a 3-0 loss to the host Seattle Kraken on New Year’s Day in the Winter Classic in front of a crowd of 47,313 at T-Mobile Park.
Joey Daccord made 35 saves for Seattle, which became the fourth team in the past 23 games to shut out the Golden Knights.
“You’ll always remember that game as a loser,” Vegas forward Jonathan Marchessault said. “So, it’s really disappointing for our group, and we know we’re a good team, but right now we’re not playing our best hockey all together and we’ve got to find a way to get more consistency.”
The game against the Panthers kicks off a stretch that sees Vegas play seven of its next eight games at home with plenty of days off sprinkled in. That will allow the Golden Knights to get some much-needed practice time.
“This next stretch of hockey is important for us,” Vegas captain Mark Stone said. “We have time off to practice, to get ready, to get our game a little bit more sharp. We’ve been all over the place this last little bit. We’re not going to use it as an excuse, but we have played a lot of hockey. We haven’t practiced.
“We’ll sharpen up our game in the next couple of days here and be ready to go for the second half of the season.”
Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said after Wednesday’s practice that center William Karlsson will miss at least the next two games with a lower-body injury. Forward Keegan Kolesar was ill and also missed practice but is expected to play Thursday.
“We should have lots of motivation,” Cassidy said. “Florida just beat us up there. They’ll come in here and to me it should be a fairly intense game. Should be ready to go in that regard.”
–Field Level Media