The two teams that have combined to win the last three Stanley Cups stumble into a meeting on Monday night in Las Vegas when the two-time defending champion Florida Panthers take on the 2023 champion Vegas Golden Knights.
It’s the final game of a four-game Western road trip for the Panthers, who sandwiched losses at Anaheim (7-3) and San Jose (3-1) around a 5-2 victory at Los Angeles.
Florida, no doubt hampered by injuries to captain Aleksander Barkov and star left wing Matthew Tkachuk, is just 4-7-1 over its last 12 games and is in seventh place in the Atlantic Division. One of those wins was a 3-0 victory over the Golden Knights on Oct. 25 in Sunrise, Fla.
Despite the loss to the Sharks on Saturday, the Panthers were upbeat before boarding their plane to Sin City. Florida outshot San Jose 33-9 over the final two periods but managed just a second-period goal by Brad Marchand.
“We had plenty of chances to capitalize, but that’s how it goes sometimes,” Marchand told the team website. “If we continue to play that way where we’re hard on pucks, hard on D, really good on the forecheck, not just next game but consistently, we’re going to be the team we expect to be.”
Marchand has scored a goal in four consecutive games and has a seven-game point streak. He needs four points to become the 102nd player in NHL history to reach the 1,000-point mark.
“Lots of chances, lots of creativity,” Florida coach Paul Maurice said. “He plays a very consistent, energetic game and we can model ourselves after that.”
Vegas, sitting in the top half of the Pacific Division, is just 2-3-2 over its last seven games and comes in off a bitter 4-3 overtime loss to the first-place Ducks on Saturday night. The Golden Knights have also been hurt by key injuries to captain Mark Stone and starting goalie Adin Hill and head into Monday’s contest just 1-2-1 on a season-high six-game homestand.
Like Florida, Vegas also comes in off a game it thought it could have won.
The Golden Knights rallied from a 3-1 deficit to tie Anaheim on third-period goals by Pavel Dorofeyev and Kaedan Korczak, outshooting the Ducks 21-6 in the period while continuing to swarm the net. But Ducks goalie Petr Mrazek, who finished with 36 saves, made a trio of big saves in overtime, including one on an Ivan Barbashev breakaway, before Jacob Trouba backhanded in the game-winner with 31.5 seconds left.
“Really thought we should have won the game, to be honest with you,” Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said.
“I think our third period was encouraging,” said forward Brett Howden, who scored a goal. “It’s more of how we know how to play and how we want to play. We were on our toes and moving forward, and it obviously showed.
“We just need more consistency in our game and bring that energy that we had in the third.”
Center William Karlsson, who assisted on Howden’s goal, left the game after the first period with what Cassidy was a lower-body injury and is listed as day-to-day. Interestingly, Karlsson played the final shift of the period and even did a between-periods TV interview but then surprisingly didn’t return for the rest of the game.
