The Florida Panthers finishing woes resurfaced in a 4-1 defeat to the Vegas Golden Knights at T-Mobile Arena.
Florida got off to fast start, but Vegas grabbed the lead at 5:28 on their first shot on goal of the game. Following a turnover, Nicolas Roy head-manned to Keegan Kolesar ,who dropped to Brayden McNabb, who smacked a shot from the left point through traffic and past Spencer Knight.
Roy and Kolesar combined to set up Tanner Pearson to make it 2-0 5:30 into the second. Pearson pulled Knight off his angle and then beat him with a well-placed wrister in the top corner, far-side.
The Panthers finally got on the board 1:56 into the final frame. Uvis Balinskis activated to collect a loose puck and passed it back to Eetu Luostarinen, who was covering for him at the left point. Luostarinen let fly and his shot was deflected in by crease camper Anton Lundell.
Unfortunately, that would be the only puck the Cats stuck past Adin Hill, and Jack Eichel sped past Aaron Ekblad to receive a breakaway pass from Ivan Barbashev before solving Knight at 11:31 to restore Vegas’ two-goal lead, with the second helper going to Alexander Holtz.
Roy picked up his third assist of the night when he set up Tomas Hertl for an empty-netter to complete the scoring with 29 ticks left on the clock. The second assist on the goal went to McNabb.
Toiling in the second half of a back-to-back, the Panthers gave a pretty good effort, but despite testing Hill 33 times, they could only come up with the one goal. The defeat means they finished the road trip with a 2-2 record. Unfortunate, because Knight, who took both losses on the western trek, gave them a chance to earn points in both Los Angeles and Las Vegas. The goal support from his teammates just wasn’t there in either outing.
Swords & Tequila
- Adin Hill earned the nod for First Star from the local media for his 32-save effort. Hill upped his record to 19-9-3 and lowered his GAA to 2.60.
- Anton Lundell’s goal gave him points in five of his last six games. Lundell has scored four goals and added five assists in the 13 games since the calendar flipped to 2025.
- Tomas Hertl’s late empty-netter extended his point streak to career-high nine games. Hertl has amassed seven goals and 13 points during his torrid run.
- Aleksander Barkov put two shots on Hill and won a team-high 11 faceoffs, but he is still seeking his first goal of the new year.
- Spencer Knight finished the game with 22 stops. Six of his saves were of the high-danger variety.
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