Global Courant
SUNRISE, Fla. –
The Vegas Golden Knights are on the verge of winning the first Stanley Cup title in franchise history after beating the Florida Panthers 3-2 in Game 4 of last Saturday night.
Vegas leads the series 3-1 and can win the NHL championship on home ice on Tuesday night. That was not easy.
Chandler Stephenson scored twice for the Golden Knights, and William Karlsson broke through to end his long goal streak and build a 3–0 lead. The Panthers scored twice—Brandon Montour on a pinball goal late in the second period, and Aleksander Barkov’s first of the series early in the third—to step in again.
But their rally fell short and placed Florida, the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference and the last team to qualify for the playoffs, on the verge of ending this improbable run.
Once again, Sergei Bobrovsky nearly kept the Panthers afloat, stopping 28 of the 31 shots he faced and blocking goals when teammates left him to dry. Across the ice, goalkeeper Adin Hill made 29 saves for his 10th win since interfering midway through the second round.
The Golden Knights need to win just one more game to deliver a championship to Las Vegas in their sixth year of existence, surpassing owner Bill Foley’s goal of winning the Stanley Cup during that span. They reached the Finals in their first season in 2017-18 before losing to Washington in five games.
Vegas is more talented and certainly seemed more prepared for the spotlight this time around. Stephenson — whom she defeated five years ago as a member of the Capitals — and Hill were trade takeovers, as were frontline center Jack Eichel and captain Mark Stone, who had two assists in Game 4.
A pair of original Knights players also helped them take the penultimate step to the top of the hockey mountain. Jonathan Marchessault assisted on Karlsson’s goal that made it 3–0, his 24th point tying the playoff lead.
Then the Panthers made it interesting. Montour scored by banking the puck off Brayden Montour’s right skate and then Shea Theodore’s right skate and past Hill with 3:51 left in the second period and set up Barkov with a perfect pass from behind the net 3:50 in the third .
Florida missed leading scorer Matthew Tkachuk for several shifts, but kept buzzing around Hill and got some more big stops from Bobrovsky to continue the pressure. A 6-to-4 lead of 17.4 seconds when veteran Vegas defenseman Alex Pietrangelo put the puck over the glass provided a final flurry, but failed to give the team its first power play goal of the series.
The Panthers will take one last breath in Game 5, but they’ll need to replicate their opening-round comeback from a 3-1 deficit to Boston to prevent Vegas from taking it all.
