LAS VEGAS – Two games into the Stanley Cup Finals, the Florida Panthers look like a No. 8 in all of the playoffs for the first time.
Florida was torched for the second year in a row, lost 7-2 to the Vegas Golden Knights on Monday to suffer a 2-0 deficit in the best-of-seven series.
And while the streak is far from over as the scene shifts to Florida for Games 3 and 4, the Panthers will need a much better performance from their star squad, which takes them past three of the Eastern Conference’s top four seeds and in the Eastern Conference has led to the cup final.
“The parts of our game that we know we can improve on, we have to get there very quickly. There’s no doubt about it.” Florida coach Paul Maurice called. “We’re going to have a pretty simple game plan. I don’t think this series is about scoring goals, it’s more about defending the attack and we weren’t very good at that tonight.”
The Panthers have averaged 2.6 goals in their first 16 playoff games, but have conceded 12 in their first two finals games. Vegas’ 12 goals are the most by a team in the first two games of the Cup Finals since the beginning of the NHL -expansion era in 1967-68.
Sergei Bobrovskythe hottest goaltender in hockey to reach the finals was sent off midway through the second game after allowing the Golden Knights four goals from 13 shots.
It was the 13-year veteran’s first time this postseason allowed four goals in consecutive games. He also conceded four goals in each of his last two games of the regular season.
Jonathan Marchessault and Alec Martinez gave Vegas a 2-0 lead in the first period. Nicolas Roy made it 3-0 after just 2:59 with the second minute and Brett Howden ended Bobrovsky’s evening minutes later when he swept across the goal area and sent the puck into the wide open net.
Alex Lyon, who opened the playoffs as Florida’s starter, replaced Bobrovsky after Howden scored a 7-10 in the second.
Bobrowski At the start of the streak, he had won 11 of 12 games and stopped 438 of 465 shots in that span, for a 1.95 goals-against average and a .942 save percentage.
So far in the finals, the two-time Vezina Trophy winner has a GAA of 5.52 and a save percentage of 0.826.
Lyon finished the game with three goals in 15 shots.
Maurice was noncommittal when asked about the team’s goalkeeping status for Game 3.
“We’re going to sweat about that for the next two days,” he said. “We can be a little better in front of our goalkeeper. He was incredible for us so I took him out to rest.”
Then there’s MVP finalist and assistant captain Matthew Tkachuk, who was the Panthers’ offensive leader with nine goals and 12 assists in the first three rounds. In his first Stanley Cup Finals appearance, he now has more misconduct (3) than goals (1).
Florida was called off for 14 penalties, including two misconduct by Tkachuk, who insisted the Panthers were simply playing their brand of physical hockey.
“I just think we’re a big, physical team,” Tkachuk said. “That’s how we played the last second half of the year and were successful. I just don’t think there are teams that play as physically as we do.”
Maybe not, but the Golden Knights took advantage of Florida’s 130 penalty minutes to go 4 to 11 (36.4%) on the power play, a big jump from their 18.5% result in the first three rounds.
What should worry the Panthers is that they were worse on penalties at home than away and conceded six goals in 19 chances. With a rate of 68.4%, the team is ranked 14th out of 16 playoff teams.
However, Tkachuk was confident that the Panthers would rediscover the magic that got them past three opponents they weren’t meant to defeat.
“I think we’re going home and we’re playing in front of our amazing fans and the momentum we’ve had there, like last month and honestly since January, it’s a solid home team and we’re going to need them. I hope we can in Game 3 to come out with our best hockey of the season,” Tkachuk said. “I think if we do that, that’s a recipe for success for us and it can make a series out of it.”
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