Comments / New

Golden Knights defeat Panthers 3-2 in Game 4 to take 3-1 series lead in Stanley Cup Final

Posted on by Jillian Wagner

The Vegas Golden Knights delivered an impressive 60-minute performance to secure a 3-2 win against the Florida Panthers in Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final Saturday night at FLA Live Arena.

Chandler Stephenson scored twice for Vegas, and William Karlsson netted the game-winner 11:04 into a dominant second period for the road team.

The Panthers made it a one-goal game early in the third period but were unable to get the equalizer, including on a late 6-on-4 opportunity.

Adin Hill shut down a last-second chance as well as 28 others, finishing the game with a .935 save percentage. For the second game in a row, Sergei Bobrovsky did everything he could to steal a game for his team, but the Golden Knights did what they couldn’t do in Game 3 and capitalized on their chances.

As a result, the Golden Knights now lead the best-of-seven series 3-1.

The Golden Knights needed to get off to a better start in Game 4.

That’s exactly what they did.

Vegas took advantage of a sloppy change by the Panthers and struck first, as Stephenson gave the Golden Knights the early lead just 99 seconds into the game, collecting a stellar pass from Zach Whitecloud and beating Bobrovsky five-hole.

“Just wanted to give a push,” Stephenson said. “[The Panthers] being at home, they’re gonna have that extra jump. Just a great play by Whitey to hold on to it and wait and let me get open.”

The Panthers had a strong response with extended zone time in the Vegas end, which was a theme in the opening frame, as Florida controlled possession. However, the Golden Knights kept the Panthers to the perimeter, and Hill came up with a few big saves, including this backdoor pad save on Matthew Tkachuk.

Bobrovsky made several key stops and was sharp after giving up the breakaway goal.

The Golden Knights and Panthers finished the opening frame tied 12-12 in shots, and Vegas recorded 11 blocks.

Notably, neither team took a penalty in the opening 20 minutes of the game. It was the first (and only) regulation period through four games with zero penalty minutes assessed.

The Golden Knights took over in the second with one of their best periods of the series. They held a 16-4 edge in scoring chances, a 4-1 lead in high-danger chances and earned 70.86 percent of the expected goal share at 5-on-5.

However, Vegas failed to run away with the game due to the play of Bobrovsky, who turned aside nine of 11 shots to keep his team in the game.

Even so, Vegas scored two goals in under four minutes to triple its lead in the middle frame.

Once again, Stephenson found twine, this time on a one-timer from the slot, to give Vegas a 2-0 lead at 7:28.

Stephenson scored off a fantastic feed from Mark Stone, who also assisted on his first-period tally.

The Golden Knights continued to push, and Karlsson got his first goal (and second point) of the series just 3:36 later.

The goal was a byproduct of Vegas’ unrelenting forecheck.

Ivan Barbashev and Jonathan Marchessault won a battle below the goal line, and Marchessault sent a backhand feed out to Nicolas Hague at the point. Hague skated to the middle of the ice and fired one towards the net; Bobrovsky gave up a juicy rebound, and Radko Gudas failed to tie up Karlsson’s stick. Karlsson’s soft shot beat Bobrovsky to give the Golden Knights a three-goal lead.

The assist from Marchessault extended his point streak to nine games, the longest of the postseason. It also moved him into a tie for first place in the NHL with 24 points in the postseason.

It was all Vegas in the second, but the Panthers got a bit of puck luck to get back in the game. Brandon Montour’s seemingly-harmless shot deflected off two Vegas skates on its way into the net to make it 3-1 at 16:09.

There was another scary moment for Jack Eichel, as he took a puck to the back of the head and neck towards the end of the period. An errant Marchessault shot hit him up high, sending him straight down the tunnel. However, he returned early in the third period.

If not for the play of Bobrovsky, Vegas could have run away with the game in the second period.

The Panthers responded early in the third, as Aleksander Barkov recorded his second point of the game to bring his team within one 3:50 into the frame.

Montour finished the game with a goal and an assist after making an excellent pass to the Panthers’ captain, who stepped up in a big way with his first goal and points of the series.

“He’s quietly been so good for us because it’s not always the overtime winners that draw attention,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said about Barkov. “You love to see those guys elevate their game for their teammates. Big goal to get us back into a fighting chance.”

It was a crucial goal for the home team, and the Panthers spent the rest of the game trying to complete the comeback.

Florida battled until the very end, but the Golden Knights played a sound defensive game, much like they did in the third period of Game 3.

This time, however, Vegas came out on top.

It came down to the wire, as the Panthers had an extended 6-on-5 look with Bobrovsky on the bench. Then, Alex Pietrangelo took a delay-of-game penalty with 17.4 seconds remaining. It was the Golden Knights’ first penalty of the game and just the second overall in the contest.

“It’s frustrating,” Pietrangelo said after the game. “Silly way to take a penalty, just trying to make a hard play. But I had trust that we were gonna get it done. The guys that were out there have played big minutes in those situations, so credit to them for getting it done.”

The ensuing 6-on-4 situation led to a dangerous opportunity in front, but Whitecloud and Brayden McNabb made two critical blocks, and Hill shut the door with an outstanding pad save at the buzzer. The goal wouldn’t have counted, but Hill made the save all the same.

“One thing our team does well is they respond to some adversity or whatever hasn’t gone well, and we found a way to keep it out of our net,” Golden Knights coach Bruce Cassidy said. “I don’t know if [Florida] had any grade-A [chances]. They threw a few towards the net, but I thought we did a good job clearing them. … I thought we did a real good job; much better than we did the other night.”

Stone was pleased with the club’s performance in the third period.

“Couple big saves, started playing the right way, got it going North,” he said. “We got a big kill that last 17 seconds; Hill comes up big for us, and we’re right where we want to be now.”

Cassidy was on the same page.

“I thought our third was good again,” he said. “I think we started well, we had a few opportunities. … They made a play, their goal, to make it 3-2; they were on the rush, they made a play, so you gotta give them credit.”

But unlike Game 3, the Golden Knights were able to close it out on Saturday.

“[The Panthers] do a good job; they get to the net,” Cassidy said. “We’ve seen it in previous series, we saw it two nights ago, so we needed to be better there. We would have liked to be able to extend the lead again, not to get in that position, but that’s hockey. I think their goaltender did a real good job of giving them some life, and they took it; we were able to close it out.”

The Golden Knights did what they had to do in Florida.

After jumping out to a 2-0 lead in the series with back-to-back wins at home, the Golden Knights had to win one of two on the road.

They did just that Saturday night to pick up win No. 15 of the playoffs, a new franchise record.

“One slipped away the other night,” Cassidy said. “We thought we were the better team, played better, but we didn’t get the win. That happens. So let’s go out and be even better, and that’s what we were [tonight]. I thought we were really good in the second period and had plenty of chances to extend the lead even more, but credit to Bobrovsky, made some saves. We were off the net with a few or hit a crossbar, and they hung around.”

It was another 60-minute effort, with contributions coming from throughout the lineup. In Game 4, it was the Stephenson line that stepped up, as he and Stone combined for four points on the night.

“He was unreal,” Nicolas Roy said about Stephenson. “He was doing it all tonight; played really good defensively as well. He’s an elite player, he [has] been all year. He’s skating, he’s making plays all over the ice, and two goals obviously tonight. So really big game from him for sure.”

Stone said he and the Golden Knights have been trying to get Stephenson to shoot more; it paid off tonight.

“He’s got one of the best shots on the team and comes up huge for us,” Stone said.

Another player who hasn’t found his way onto the scoresheet much in this series is Karlsson, who ended up scoring one of the biggest goals of the season to give the Golden Knights a two-goal lead, something they were unable to achieve in Game 3.

“They have a lot of resiliency,” Marchessault said about the Panthers. They’ve done it all along the playoffs, and you gotta give them credit. But our team, we worked hard to get that lead, and we were able to keep it there.”

Though Hill was unable to get over on the Barkov goal, it was another stellar performance for him, especially facing 12 shots from a desperate Panthers team in the third period.

Hill has stopped 111 of 120 shots through the first four games of the Stanley Cup Final, good for a combined save percentage of .925.

“He’s been huge since he came in, and, honestly, we wouldn’t be here without him tonight,” Marchessault said of his goaltender. “He’s such a great guy; you want to battle for a guy like that every night.”

For the first time this series, special teams didn’t play a role in the outcome of the game.

Both teams were significantly more disciplined, and the referees put the whistles away for the most part. But that hasn’t been an issue for the Golden Knights throughout the playoffs, and it didn’t hold them back in Game 4.

It was the first game in this series in which the Golden Knights didn’t get two goals on the power play, but that didn’t stop them from beating Bobrovsky three times.

Tkachuk wasn’t much of a factor, but it was clear he was not 100 percent. It could be residual effects from the enormous hit he took from Keegan Kolesar in Game 3, though he declined to answer multiple questions about his injury after the game. It looked like he was playing with one hand on his stick for much of the night.

“Matthew’s been a grinder his whole life, and he was again tonight,” Maurice said. “We were just looking, hoping to get into some situation where he could use what he had to give us.”

Tkachuk was on the bench for most of the third period, but he did go out at the end of the game. He came close to netting yet another clutch goal for his team, but Hill said no.

He had a glorious scoring chance in the first period, but Hill made a strong save on the backdoor opportunity.

Tkachuk was a significant factor in the Panthers’ Game 3 victory, but the Golden Knights kept him off the scoresheet in Game 4. Most of that was due to his injury, but a player of Tkachuk’s ability doesn’t need much to make something happen.

“We got two days off to assess that,” Maurice said about Tkachuk’s status for Game 5. “Get some good rest and make that decision then.”

The Golden Knights had the killer instinct they needed in the second period, where they have outscored opponents 30-10 during the postseason. Though they weren’t able to extend the lead further due to Bobrovsky, their effort in the second ultimately won them the game.

“It was a good hockey game,” Bobrovsky said. “Obviously, you want to be on the other side in those kind of games, but it is what it is, so we move forward.”

Bobrovsky came up with timely saves all night, and the Golden Knights often failed to overcome his strong positioning, with many shots going right into the bread basket.

Vegas had more good looks in the third period, but Bobrovsky kept his team in the game with a few huge saves on Marchessault as well as a big stop on Eichel.

Eichel had a wide-open look but didn’t get enough air on the shot, though it was still a strong reaction save by Bobrovsky.

The Golden Knights’ third pairing, which has played like anything but a bottom pairing, played a crucial role in the victory. Not only did Whitecloud and Hague combine for three points and factor into each Vegas goal, but Whitecloud came up with a huge block at the end of regulation to hold off the Panthers’ final push.

But the entire team contributed to another solid defensive game. The Golden Knights finished the night with 30 blocks, one fewer than Game 3; they have blocked a total of 97 shots in this series.

The Golden Knights now find themselves one win away from the first Stanley Cup in franchise history.

“There’s gonna be a lot of people in their ear when you’re one game away,” Cassidy said. “Maybe take a day and enjoy that and deal with that, but when we get back on the ice Monday, it’s time to get back to work and back to business. And our group’s been very good at that, very good. They understand what’s at stake.”

The Panthers are no strangers to this situation; in fact, they pulled off one of the biggest upsets in NHL history when they overcame a 3-1 deficit against the Boston Bruins in the first round of the playoffs.

Florida is 5-1 in elimination games this postseason.

“If we go into Vegas, the longer it goes, the longer the game goes, the longer the series goes, all the pressure goes to them,” Tkachuk said, echoing Pete DeBoer’s mantra from the Western Conference Final.

“I like our fight,” Montour said. “We just gotta keep pushing. We got it in this group.”

The Golden Knights also will rely on their experience as they head into a potential Cup-clinching game on home ice.

“You gotta take it day by day,” Pietrangelo said. “We got a couple days here to regroup. Tomorrow will be a good day to kind of get our minds away. We’ve played really well at home here in the playoffs, so you gotta feel pretty good going home with a 3-1 lead.”

Though there wasn’t much in the way of officiating throughout the game, there were a slew of penalties handed out at the end of the night, with both Tkachuk and Montour getting 10-minute misconducts (Tkachuk now has four through four games). Hill was involved as well, as he fought to protect his crease at the end of the game.

The late skirmish should set the tone for what is sure to be an intense Game 5 Tuesday night in Las Vegas.

“We gotta leave the noise out there and just focus,” Marchessault said. “It’s gonna be an effort that we need 20 guys, and we’re gonna stay in the moment. We’ve been telling ourselves that all playoffs so far, and we’re gonna have to keep our emotion composed. … It’s gonna work well for us if we do that.”

The fourth win is the hardest to come by, however, which is something the Golden Knights have preached ahead of every elimination game this postseason.

“Closing a series, it’s the hardest thing to do,” Marchessault said. “Our best game has yet to come.”

Jillian Wagner /
@JillianSydney

Talking Points