Strong 3rd period lifts Knights over Panthers in Game 1

 

[June 05, 2023]  After his team took a 1-0 lead in the Stanley Cup Final with a 5-2 victory on Saturday night, Vegas center Jonathan Marchessault stressed the importance of staying even-keeled heading into Monday's Game 2 in Las Vegas.

"I think we know the importance of each game," Marchessault, who scored his eighth goal in the last eight games, said. "Obviously, the first game was huge to get the win. We can be satisfied until midnight tonight but after that we have to focus on Game 2. There's a lot of work left to do."

Marchessault speaks from experience.

The Golden Knights also won Game 1 in 2018 in their only other trip to the finals. But the Alex Ovechkin-led Washington Capitals rebounded to win the next four games in a row to get their names engraved on hockey's most cherished trophy.

Adin Hill made 33 saves and Zach Whitecloud scored the go-ahead goal to highlight a three-goal third period for Vegas in Saturday's opener of the best of-seven series. Shea Theodore had a goal and an assist, Jack Eichel had two assists and Marchessault, Mark Stone and Reilly Smith also scored for Vegas.

Eric Staal scored a short-handed goal and Anthony Duclair also scored for Florida, which had an eight-game road winning streak snapped. Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 29 of 33 shots.

Staal said there was no panic in the Florida locker room after dropping Game 1. After all, the Panthers also lost the opener in their first-round series with Boston and came back from a 3-1 deficit to stun the Presidents' Trophy winners in seven games.

"It's part of this time of year," Staal said. "That's how it works. You get yourself off the mat and be excited for the challenge of Game 2. That's what our focus will be. We'll do it right and prepare and get ready for the next one."

"It's the first game," Bobrovsky added. "It's a long series. Lots of hockey ahead of us. We play, we learn, and we move on."

The game was tied 2-2 entering the third period when Whitecloud fired a long wrist shot through traffic from inside the blue line past the glove of a screened Bobrovsky at the 6:59 mark.

Stone made it 4-2 with 6:19 remaining when he knocked down a clearing pass in the slot and then roofed a wrist shot into the top right corner of the net for his seventh goal of the playoffs. Smith added an empty-netter with 1:45 left to seal the win.

Florida, playing its first game in 10 days after sweeping the Carolina Hurricanes in the Eastern Conference finals, didn't show any rust in jumping out to a 1-0 lead 9:40 into the first period on Staal's second goal of the playoffs.

The Panthers were killing a Nick Cousins penalty for roughing Hill during a scrum around the goal when Staal broke up the left wing and wrapped a shot around the left post and off the stick of a diving Hill.

Vegas tied it 1-1 at the 17:18 mark on a power-play goal by Marchessault. Chandler Stephenson set up the score with a backhand pass from along the boards. Marchessault was left alone in the slot, where he buried his 10th goal of the playoffs.

Florida had a chance to regain the lead early in the second period when Matthew Tkachuk found Cousins alone in the slot, but Hill, diving back toward the left post, stopped Cousins' attempt at a wide-open net with the paddle of his stick by the goal line.

"I guess that's the kind of stuff you dream of when you're growing up," Hill said of his highlight-reel save. "It was nice. Just kind of desperation there, reached out with my stick and got a piece of it."

"It was a big save at a big time of the game," Marchessault said.

The Golden Knights then took a 2-1 lead at the 10:54 mark of the second when Theodore fired a wrist shot from above the circles. It was Theodore's first goal of the postseason.

The Panthers tied it with 11 seconds left in the period when Aleksander Barkov pulled a faceoff in the right circle back to Duclair, who quickly ripped a wrist shot through Hill's pads for his fourth goal of the playoffs.

--Field Level Media

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