Articles in Vegas Golden Knights

Vegas defeated the Florida Panthers 3-2 tonight and now have a 3-1 series lead.

Vegas had a 3-0 lead then held on to win tonight's game.

Team Stats

Below find the game highlights and post game videos.

A bit over 2 minutes to watch.

from Luke Fox of Sportsnet,

Seemingly having the game — and the series — in total control Thursday night, the Vegas Golden Knights looked stunned while they were getting showered by plastic rats under a frozen clock.

Up 2-0 in the series and 2-1 late in Game 3, they had the Florida Panthers on the mat. Yet here they were, skating off the FLA Live ice following the one-two punch of Matthew Tkachuk’s 6-on-5 tying goal and Carter Verhaeghe’s winner on the scrappy home side’s first shot of OT.

Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy spoke of a “sour taste” postgame yet woke up Friday and rinsed his mouth. Staying five-star beachside in Fort Lauderdale, he gave his veteran group a full day off.

Sour taste gone for Cassidy and Knights, now ready to turn the page to Game 4Play VideoPlayMuteCurrent Time 0:00/Duration 1:06Loaded: 14.95% Fullscreen

No video. No bus to the rink. No talk of the Panthers.

Relax. Reset. Do whatever is necessary to get your mind right.

“We’re not going to change a lot. We don’t need to,” a confident Cassidy proclaimed.

Captain Mark Stone is equally unfazed: “We knew it was going to be tough, right? They’re a resilient team. We want to be able to close games, but we’ll regroup and be ready for the next one.”

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from the CP at TSN,

The sour taste in the aftermath of their Stanley Cup Final Game 3 loss is gone for the Vegas Golden Knights, who quickly moved on to enjoying the nearby ocean breeze.

They're breathing easily up 2-1 on the Florida Panthers in the series, knowing fully they've been the better team so far. Taking a day away off the ice and away from the rink — but not too far away from hockey on this big a stage — the Golden Knights are calm, cool and confident going into Game 4 Saturday night with another chance to move toward hoisting the Cup.

“We’re not going to change a lot. We don’t need to,” coach Bruce Cassidy said from his team's beachfront hotel Friday morning. “We’re not going to beat ourselves up over (Game 3). We’re going to do what we’ve always done. We’re going to work to get better and keep growing our game and hopefully be better.”

The Golden Knights have only lost consecutive games once on this playoff run, when they were up 3-0 on Dallas in the Western Conference final. What followed was their best performance of the entire season.

That's still the blueprint, which could come in handy since that was also a road game. But there are still elements of what Vegas is doing entirely within this series that give players confidence, everything from going a surprising 6 of 17 on the power play and a perfect 12 of 12 on the penalty kill to solving Sergei Bobrovsky early and even Ivan Barbashev hitting the post late in the third period Thursday.

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from Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic,

Sam Reinhart came darting into the Vegas zone early in the third period Thursday, and for a brief moment, there appeared to be some daylight to get around Nicolas Hague.

But like so many instances involving Golden Knights defenders in this Stanley Cup Final, it came to nothing. Hague used his reach to deftly push the Panthers forward to the outside and nullify the threat.

It was a simple play, one which wasn’t otherwise noteworthy, but it’s something we’ve seen again and again in this championship series. The Panthers are struggling to get to the inside, Vegas’ big-six D imposing their size and strength to limit any sustained pressure near the Golden Knights net.

All of which made Florida’s Game 3 comeback win even more impressive, because again for long stretches Thursday night, the Panthers were kept to the outside, and 31 of their shots blocked.

It’s been a daunting task for Panthers forwards.

“Your (scoring) opportunities might not be 10 a game; there might be five to seven,” Reinhart said after the game Thursday. “We’re able to adjust a little as the series goes on. Try and play with a little more pace. They’re collapsing to the goalie. They’re collapsing to the slot. They make it difficult. So I think just timing and pace and getting pucks to the net at the right time is going to benefit us.”

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from Jesse Granger of The Athletic,

The Golden Knights were so close they could almost taste it. They were only 133 seconds away from a 3-0 series lead that would’ve put them comfortably in the driver’s seat in the Stanley Cup Final.

Instead, Matthew Tkachuk added to his rapidly growing list of timely goals, and Carter Verhaeghe added to his overtime winners, and we have a series on our hands. The Panthers held serve on their home ice Thursday with a 3-2 win to close the series gap to 2-1, and the Golden Knights must regroup after their first loss of the championship series.

The way it ended could’ve been jarring for Vegas, but the mood in the dressing room following the loss suggested the opposite. Captain Mark Stone stood in front of his stall, calmly and confidently explaining where he felt the team could’ve been better.

“We didn’t capitalize on chances,” he said. “I think we were playing a really good five-on-five game there. Weren’t really capitalizing on our chances. Overall, I thought we were playing a really solid game. … Kind of sat back a little bit, but (we have to) regroup and get ready for Game 4.”...

“Nobody says it was going to be easy,” said Jack Eichel, who added to his team-record 23 points this postseason with a gorgeous saucer pass to set up Jonathan Marchessault’s second-period goal. “You never want to blow a lead, but give them credit. They make a play and here we are, moving on.”

read on ($)

from Iain MacIntyre of Sportsnet,

If Matthew Tkachuk really wants to hurt the Vegas Golden Knights, all he has to do is play hockey. The evidence was in the Florida Panthers’ desperate 3-2 overtime victory Thursday in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final.

Florida coach Paul Maurice said before the game that discipline was a “touchy” subject for his team, which was like a climate scientist saying global warming is a touchy subject for the Earth.

If only global warming were as easy to fix (or at least acknowledge for some) as discipline. In the two days between the second and third games of the National Hockey League final, Maurice seems to have fixed the discipline problem with Tkachuk.

Florida’s best player, a Hart Trophy finalist this season and one of the best players in the world, Tkachuk spent more time in the penalty box (36 minutes) than on the ice (34 ½ minutes) during the first two games against the Vegas Golden Knights when the Panthers looked a little like 18 Hanson brothers from the Johnstown Chiefs and lost both contests by an aggregate score of 12-4.

No wonder discipline was a touchy subject on which Maurice, at least with reporters after the morning skate, did not much wish to elaborate. Presumably, his discussions with Tkachuk and the Panthers were exhaustive.

In Game 3, Tkachuk’s only timeout was in the quiet room, where he may have felt pain but no shame when tardy concussion-spotters from the NHL ordered him off the ice in the first period after the Panthers’ biggest star absorbed a hellacious-but-legal hit from Keegan Kolesar.

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The game highlights are below.

The Florida Panthers won 3-2 in OT to make it a series, Vegas now leads 2-1.

What a gritty win by Florida, I almost had them buried but this team does not give up.

Next game is Saturday at 8pm ET in Sunrise.

Team Stats

Below watch the goals from tonight.

from Iain MacIntyre of Sportsnet,

Asked if the net looks big to him these days, Jonathan Marchessault was appalled.

“It's actually pretty small,” he said Wednesday, viewing the questioner as if he had just arrived on the redeye from Mars. “Bobrovsky is pretty big in there, no? They need to make those nets bigger.”

Perhaps. But the net has seemed cavernous for both Florida Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky and Marchessault, the Vegas Golden Knights shooter who has scored three times in the first two games of the Stanley Cup Final.

Even at five-foot-nine, Marchessault is figuratively the larger of the two players at the moment. His pair of goals in Vegas’ 7-2 blowout win in Game 2 on Monday – both on world-class finishes – gave the 32-year-old 12 goals in his last 12 playoff games.

This production has brought the winger into Conn Smythe Trophy conjecture, although the MVP race is still too close to call if Vegas wins because the Knights’ ideology and deep lineup make it difficult (and unnecessary) for any one player to dominate.

But no one in the National Hockey League has been more offensively prolific the last month than Marchessault.

His 19 points the last dozen games are four more than the next nearest playoff scorer...

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from Jesse Granger of The Athletic,

Barbashev has been money, and in doing so is making himself a lot of it. This run couldn’t be better timed for his bank account, considering he’s set to hit unrestricted free agency. His stock is soaring after the way he has contributed in all facets.

It begs the question: How much will he command, and will the Golden Knights be able to hold onto him? Barbashev has indicated he’d be very interested in staying, but could his strong play price him out of Vegas?

Evolving-Hockey has his projected contract value at $4.5 million per season for a four-year contract based on comparables around the league. That, of course is taking into account his larger sample size of play, which isn’t nearly as strong as he has played in a limited time as a Golden Knight.

Barbashev is coming off a two-year deal that he signed in St. Louis that carried a $2.25 million average annual value (AAV), and undoubtedly he will be getting a raise from that.

The GSVA model by The Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn projects his value at only $3.3 million moving forward, suggesting a deal worth $4.5 million would be a slight overpay, but there are several factors leading to that figure being low. The biggest is Barbashev’s defensive deficiencies over the last couple of seasons, which haven’t been an issue at all in his short time with the Golden Knights.

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Paul Maurice first, Bruce Cassidy below.

from Iain MacIntyre of Sportsnet,

The Florida Panthers are trying to be tough. The Vegas Golden Knights actually are.

The Stanley Cup finalists were opposites on Monday, and not because the Knights ventilated Conn Smythe Trophy candidate Sergei Bobrovsky in a decisive (and easy) 7-2 victory that gave Vegas a 2-0 series lead in the National Hockey League championship.

For all the overt and cosmetic displays of “toughness” by the Panthers, who revel in their reputation as shift-disturbers, it’s the steady, unbending Knights who appear through two lopsided wins to have the nerve and fortitude that reflect genuine toughness.

Discipline is toughness. Only one team has it.

The Panthers were so tough they were soft in Game 2. They took two silly penalties early that led to a deficit and displayed little actual resistance around their own net.

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Below, Michael Russo of The Athletic on the Panthers and watch the game highlights.

* Jonathan Marchessault and the Golden Knights ensured that the largest NHL crowd in Las Vegas since 2019 went home happy as they matched a franchise playoff record with seven goals en route to a 2-0 series lead in the Stanley Cup Final.

* Vegas moved within two wins of its first title by matching the NHL benchmark for goals through two games of a Stanley Cup Final (12) in what is so far the highest-scoring championship series since 1982 (16 combined goals).

* The Stanley Cup Final will return to Sunrise for the first time in 27 years when the Golden Knights and Panthers contest Game 3 on Thursday. South Florida will be hosting two championship series this week as both the Stanley Cup Final and NBA Finals descend on the area.

Watch the video in 91 seconds.

from Danny Webster of the Las Vegas Sun,

The reason why the Golden Knights are still playing hockey in June shouldn’t be so cliche, but it is. They’re scoring goals.

The math is simple. The Golden Knights have scored at least three goals in 13 playoff games this spring. They’ve won them all, the 13th coming Saturday in their 5-2 win in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final against the Florida Panthers.

Five different players, including two defensemen, contributed to the scoring in Game 1 to allow the Golden Knights to defend home ice. Game 2 is tonight (5 p.m., TNT), with the West’s top seed trying to take a 2-0 series lead.

“The offense is kind of coming from everywhere,” forward William Carrier said. “We’ve got four good lines that can score goals on different nights.”

It shouldn’t be this alarming that the Golden Knights have found the scoring touch in the postseason. Considering how the last two playoff runs have unfolded, it’s an eye-opening revelation.

The Golden Knights have scored 3.72 goals per contest in 18 playoff games. Only the Boston Bruins, who were eliminated in the first round to these same Panthers that Vegas is playing against for the Stanley Cup, averaged more (3.86).

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via TSN's YouTube page,

The Golden Knights explain how they plan to handle the physicality that the Panthers brought in Game 1, what Jack Eichel has meant to the team, the confidence Adin Hill has between the pipes, and being able to score four goals on Sergei Bobrovsky.

from Luke Fox of Sportsnet,

Paul Maurice is projecting calm.

He’s cracking jokes, breaking ice, and staying the course.

Just because his hockey team lost for just the second time in its past 13 games — all big ones, all against favoured opponents — doesn’t mean he’s about to lose his cool.

“It’s a tight game. Both teams make mistakes,” the Florida Panthers head coach reasons after his group blew an early lead to the Vegas Golden Knights and lost 5-2 in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final on Saturday.

“We lost the first game in the Boston series. Well, we got a little better. Then we lost two more, got a little better.”

Maurice pauses and addresses a room of quiet reporters.

“Everybody just (expletive) breathe.”

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Game highlights are below.

“Our goal is to win the Stanley Cup. It’s what we’re trying to accomplish. We think we’ve built our best team. … It has been a six-year journey. It’s been a process that has been calculated.”

-Kelly McCrimmon, GM of the Vegas Golden Knights. Ed Graney of the Las Vegas Review-Journal has more on the Knights.

Who do you have to win the Stanley Cup Final?

Your choices are the Vegas Golden Knights (home ice advantage) or the Florida Panthers.

Leave your decision below and to show your hockey expertise, how many combined total goals in the SCF.

Results from the Conference Finals are here. Pay no attention to the guy named Paul who went 0-2.

original post was on 6/1/23 at 3:06pm

via the NHL's YouTube page,

Hear from the Florida Panthers and Vegas Golden Knights at Media Day, as players join Stanley Cup Live prior to Game 1 of the 2023 Stanley Cup Final.