When the Vegas Golden Knights came into existence, owner Bill Foley set a goal to win the Stanley Cup within their first six seasons.
The Golden Knights are one win away from completing that feat after claiming a 3-2 victory over the Florida Panthers on Saturday night in Sunrise, Fla., in Game 4 of the finals.
Vegas leads the best-of-seven series 3-1, and will look to clinch its first championship Tuesday at home in Las Vegas.
“I think everybody knows what’s at stake,” Golden Knights forward Chandler Stephenson told Sportsnet after scoring twice in Saturday’s game. “We’ve got a veteran group, and we know what to do.”
William Karlsson also scored as Vegas took a 3-0 lead and held on as goaltender Adin Hill made 29 saves, including a couple of clutch stops in the final seconds. Captain Mark Stone collected two assists.
Teams holding a 3-1 lead in a best-of-seven Stanley Cup Final have won 36 of 37 times. The only team to come back is the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs, who trailed 3-0 to the Detroit Red Wings.
The Golden Knights reached the Stanley Cup Final in 2017-18, their inaugural season, but lost to the Washington Capitals in five games. The Philadelphia Flyers won the 1974 title in their seventh season, giving the Golden Knights an opportunity to top that achievement.
“We’ve got two days off, so I think we just enjoy this win, regroup tomorrow just like we did after the loss,” Stone told NHL Network. “You treat it the same way. There’s going to be momentum swings in a game and there’s momentum series in the series. We’ve got a lot of leadership in that group that has been here before, and I think we’ll be ready to go.”
Brandon Montour and Aleksander Barkov both collected one goal and one assist for the Panthers. Goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 28 shots for the club, which is one loss away from seeing their Cinderella run end.
Stephenson sent the Golden Knights off and running when he converted a breakaway 99 seconds into the game, and notched his second goal of the game, and 10th of the playoffs, at 7:28 of the second period.
They appeared to have the game in hand when Karlsson’s 11th goal of the playoffs made it 3-0 at 11:04 of the second period, but the Panthers clawed back.
Montour notched his eighth goal of the playoffs when his long shot banked off two defenders and into the net with 3:51 remaining in the second period, and Barkov scored to make it a one-goal game at 3:50 of the third period.
Florida, which won Game 3 in overtime after a late game-tying goal, couldn’t duplicate that feat despite a frantic late push.
The Panthers opened the playoffs by erasing a 3-1 series deficit against the Eastern Conference’s top squad during the regular season, the Boston Bruins. Now they will look to do just that against a Vegas squad that was tops in the Western Conference.
“Just go out there, win one game and force them to come back to Florida. That’s pretty much the message in this room,” said Panthers forward Matthew Tkachuk, who saw limited shifts in the third period but would not reveal why.
“It was the same thing with Boston. … We just thought short-term and get it back to Florida then, and we’re going to do the same thing now.”
–Field Level Media
