Carter Verhaeghe and Sam Bennett scored third-period power-play goals to lead the Florida Panthers to a 4-2 victory over the Vegas Golden Knights in a rematch of the 2023 Stanley Cup Final on Saturday afternoon in Sunrise, Fla.
Verhaeghe had a goal and an assist and Gustav Forsling and Sam Reinhart also scored for Florida, which snapped a two-game losing streak. Aleksander Barkov, Matthew Tkachuk and Brandon Montour each added two assists and Sergei Bobrovsky made 23 saves to pick up his 15th win of the season.
Mark Stone and Pavel Dorofeyev scored goals for Vegas, which suffered its third consecutive regulation loss for the first time this season. Jiri Patera finished with 38 saves as the Golden Knights allowed a season-high 42 shots on goal.
The Golden Knights defeated the Panthers in five games in the Stanley Cup matchup.
Vegas, outshot 20-3 in the first period, took a 1-0 lead at the 1:21 mark of the second period when Stone, left alone in the low slot, took a pass from Ivan Barbashev and fired a wrist shot into the top left corner of the net for his 11th goal of the season.
The Panthers tied it midway through the period when Bennett snapped a wrist shot from the right circle under Patera’s left arm.
Florida then took a 2-1 lead at the 15:16 mark when Barkov drew a faceoff back to Forsling at the top of the left circle. Forsling then slapped a shot through traffic and under Patera’s left pad.
Vegas tied it at 2 with 23 seconds left in the period when Dorofeyev buried a crossing pass from Ben Hutton.
Verhaeghe then put the Panthers back in front to stay at the 6:10 mark of the third period with a power-play goal, snapping a wrist shot from the edge of the left circle past Patera’s glove and inside the far right post. It was Verhaeghe’s 100th goal in three-plus seasons with the Panthers and 16th of the season.
Reinhart followed with another power-play goal to make it 4-2 just 1:59 later, snapping in a wrist shot from the edge of the right circle for his 19th goal of the season. It was the ninth power-play goal allowed over the last four games by the Golden Knights.
–Field Level Media
