2023 NHL Stanley Cup Final: 6 Takeaways From Golden Knights-Panthers Game 2

The Vegas Golden Knights are closer than they’ve ever been.

Coach Bruce Cassidy’s team won 7-2 and took a 2-0 lead in its Stanley Cup Final series with the Florida Panthers on Monday night at T-Mobile Arena, getting a game beyond where Gerard Gallant’s squad had in 2018 when it lost in five to the Washington Capitals.

The series scene shifts to south Florida on Thursday and Saturday where the Panthers will host Games 3 and 4 at FLA Live Arena in Sunrise. If necessary, the series will return to Vegas for game five on Tuesday, June 13.

No team has lost the first two games and rallied to win the Cup since Boston in 2011.

The B/R hockey team took in all the Monday action and came up with a list of the most pertinent takeaways from an eventful game two in the Nevada desert. Take a look at what we came up with a drop a thought or two of your own in the comments.

Watch complete coverage of the Stanley Cup Final on TNT, TBS and Tru TV

It’s a good time to be Adin Hill.

And now that you mention it, it’s not a bad time to be his agent either.

The now-27-year-old had been traded twice in 15 months as he prepped for 2022-23 with the Golden Knights and wound up being one of five goalies to start at least one game for Vegas during the regular season.

He was a backup to starter Laurent Brossoit in the team’s five-game defeat of the Winnipeg Jets in the first round, but took over for his ineffective teammate in a Game 2 loss against the Edmonton Oilers in the next round and replaced him due to injury in Game 3.

To say expectations were low would be an understatement.

But a month later, he’s a legit Conn Smythe Trophy candidate.

All he’s done since arriving is win eight of 11 starts with two shutouts and he kick-started the Golden Knights’ rout on Monday night with five saves on a Florida power play while Vegas was nursing a one-goal first-period lead. Twenty-one seconds after the penalty expired, Alec Martinez scored to make it 2-0.

Earlier in the period, he’d stoned Carter Verhaeghe on a breakaway less than three minutes before Jonathan Marchessault opened the scoring.

It’s convenient timing for Hill and his financial team considering he’s on track to become an unrestricted free agent next month when the two-year, $4.35 million deal he signed with San Jose in 2021 expires. Brossoit and veteran Jonathan Quick are also impending UFAs and Robin Lehner’s status is unknown due to legal trouble off the ice. That leaves Logan Thompson as the only goalie under contract for the Golden Knights for 2023-24.

“Adin Hill,” TNT analyst Eddie Olczyk said, “has been absolutely dynamite here in this series.”

You can’t blame George McPhee for smiling these days.

Now the president of hockey operations in Vegas, McPhee was the organization’s original general manager and was responsible for the transactions that put the likes of Jonathan Marchessault, Reilly Smith, William Karlsson, Shea Theodore, William Carrier and Brayden McNabb in Vegas uniforms for the inaugural 2017-18 season.

To say those holdovers, affectionately labeled “Misfits” by the local fanbase, have remained effective in 2022-23 would be an understatement of championship proportions.

Marchessault, who just happened to have come to Vegas from Florida, opened the scoring Monday night and added an assist on the goal that made it 2-0 by the end of the first period and scored again to make it 5-1 in the third.

His goals were his 10th and 11th in 11 games after he’d opened the playoffs without scoring in the first series with Winnipeg and Games 1 and 2 against Edmonton.

Fellow “Misfit” Carrier had three points in the final four games of the Western Conference Final against Dallas and he assisted on the 3-0 goal by Nicolas Roy on Monday. Not to be outdone, both Theodore and Smith scored in game one while McNabb added an assist.

And Karlsson, who assisted on the Michael Amadio goal that made it 6-1, had 10 goals and 14 points through 17 games against Winnipeg, Edmonton and Dallas.

“We’ve been through it,” Marchessault said. “Over the years you go through ups and downs. To be back, battling with those guys, and getting back here, that’s an opportunity of a lifetime. We have to take full advantage of it.”

The penalty kill was not a Florida hockey strong suit this season.

The Panthers were 23rd in the league with a 76-percent success rate during the regular season and had actually fared slightly worse in the playoffs, dropping back to 71.2 percent through 16 games in spite of series wins over Boston, Toronto and Carolina.

But while they were able to mask the issues in those victories, it hasn’t been the case against the Golden Knights, who scored twice with a man advantage in their Game-1 victory and added another on their first power play in the first period in Game 2.

And it wasn’t as if Monday’s opening infraction was a necessary one.

Florida winger Ryan Lomberg went to the box early in the session with a cross-check to Jonathan Marchessault shortly after teammate Radek Gudas had been checked hard by Ivan Barbashev and left the game. Soon after, Marchessault snapped a shot past Sergei Bobrovsky to open the scoring and give the Golden Knights a lead they’d never lose.

They added another power-play goal late in the third to establish the final 7-2 margin.

Vegas is 9-0 in the 2023 playoffs when it scores at least one power-play goal.

Ivan Barbashev has a legit Stanley Cup pedigree.

And he’s been solid ever since the Golden Knights acquired him during a whirlwind trade deadline for the NHL.

He played 80 regular-season games with St. Louis in 2018-19 before suiting up for 25 more games in the playoffs as the Blues rolled to the first championship in franchise history.

The 6’1″, 195-pounder played three more full seasons with the team and had 59 games with it in 2022-23 before he was sent to Vegas shortly before the trade deadline in a deal that saw Zach Dean head the other direction on Feb. 26.

The 27-year-old posted six goals and 16 points in the final 23 games with the Golden Knights and had 16 points in his first 18 playoff games this spring, but he made his presence known physically on Monday night with a hit that prompted Radko Gudas to leave the game early.

There might have been bigger stars that were dealt at the deadline, but it’s hard to argue that Barbashev has had the biggest impact of all the players that were moved.

The 27-year-old posted six goals and 16 points in the final 23 games with the Golden Knights and had 16 points in his first 18 playoff games this spring, but he made his presence known physically on Monday night with a hit that prompted Radko Gudas to leave the game early.

The Moscow-born forward has already established a successful partnership with teammate Jack Eichel. On the same line with the red-hot Marchessault, the trio has picked up their production during the postseason.

With his hit on Gudas and his strong play through two games so far, the soon-to-be free agent has now become a retaliation target, drawing a misconduct penalty from Florida’s Anthony Duclair late in the third period.

“I would recommend,” TNT analyst Eddie Olczyk said, “that if you’re going to hit Barbashev you be ready to take some good hard physicality coming back your way.”

Make no mistake, the Panthers aren’t here without Sergei Bobrovsky.

He replaced Alex Lyon and won Games 5, 6 and 7 against Boston in the first round, allowed 10 goals in five games in round two against Toronto and gave up just six goals in a four-game sweep of Carolina in the Eastern Conference Final.

But it seems as if the magic dust has run out.

The two-time Vezina Trophy winner allowed four goals in Florida’s game one loss to Vegas and was chased from the net in the second period of Monday’s loss after allowing four goals on 14 shots. His save percentage through two games is a pedestrian .830.

And it came after he’d not allowed more than three since Game 6 against Boston.

The Golden Knights are the first team to score at least five times in the first two games of the Cup final since the Hurricanes in 2006 and the first team to net 12 goals in the opening pair since the New York Islanders in 1982.

“He’s such an elite goalie, so you have to make his life hard there,” Vegas forward Jonathan Marchessault said. “We know he’s really good low, and it’s one of those things that we got to get to the front of the net, and we were able to get a few pucks through there and it helped our offense, for sure.”

Everyone already knew Jack Eichel could play.

He had six playoff goals and 20 points through game one of the series against Florida but his stud pedigree went up a few hundred notches on Monday night.

The second pick in the 2015 draft behind Connor McDavid had a dubious injury history that prompted a neck surgery and ultimately led to his trade from Buffalo to Vegas.

So when he was drilled by Florida’s Matthew Tkachuk on a clean middle-ice hit near the end of the second period and immediately left the ice, the immediate chatter suggested it was a potential series turning point if he was rendered unable to return to action.

Eichel caught his skate on the ice and lurched forward was obviously shaken as Tkachuk delivered the blow, but he was back on the bench to begin the third and made an instant impact with a pass that set Jonathan Marchessault up for the goal that made it 5-1.

He’d already assisted on Marchessault’s first goal in the first period and became the seventh player since 1943-44 to record multiple points in the first two Cup final games of his career. His 22 points are tied for the franchise’s playoff high with Reilly Smith’s 2018 run.

And it was further evidence of the now-26-year-old’s 200-foot effort, and after the game he declared his bill of health completely clean.

“I’m fine,” Eichel told TNT analyst Darren Pang. “I didn’t really see him until the last minute. It was a clean hit. It’s a collision game. But credit to my teammates for sticking up for me.

“It’s been a ton of fun, the whole experience. (The all-around success) means a lot to me. It’s something I’ve tried to work on this year. The coaches have stressed it and I’m a factor of that.”