The Vegas Golden Knights completed a blowout 7-2 victory over the Florida Panthers to take a 2-0 series lead in the Stanley Cup final.
The Vegas Golden Knights continued their domination of the Florida Panthers on Monday night, blowing the doors off their opponent in Game 2 of the Stanley Cup final by a score of 7-2 to push their series lead to 2-0.
It didn't take too long for Jonathan Marchessault to blow the roof off the building early in the first period.
A chaotic sequence of events saw Ryan Lomberg take a penalty for cross-checking after catching Marchessault in the ear, leading to a vengeful Ivan Barbashev crushing Radko Gudas along the boards to send the hulking defenseman down the tunnel. On the ensuing power play, Marchessault took a deft pass from Chandler Stephenson and wired it past a sprawling Sergei Bobrovsky, giving the Golden Knights an early and crucial lead.
From there, the floodgates opened.
After a massive penalty kill that included some truly spectacular goaltending from Adin Hill, Vegas set up shop in the Panthers' zone, pummelling Bobrovsky with shots from all areas while the Florida defenders scrambled to respond. As the offensive pressure continued to mount, Alec Martinez managed to sneak into an open area near the slot and corral a loose puck, fanning on his first attempt before rifling his second shot over Bobrovsky's shoulder to double the Golden Knights' lead and send the home crowd into a frenzy.
The carnage didn't stop in the second period, either.
Less than four minutes into the frame, Nicolas Roy corralled a loose puck off of a broken zone entry and put his shoulder down as he drove to the net. With a number of Panthers defenders in front of him, Bobrovsky didn't realize he needed to drop to the ice until it was too late. Catching the goaltender off guard, Roy flung the puck at the net and watched it trickle in, putting the Golden Knights up 3-0 and tightening their stranglehold on the scrambling Panthers.
The next goal would mark an early end to Bobrovsky's night.
After Mark Stone broke his stick in the defensive zone, the Golden Knights regained possession and waited just long enough for their captain to grab a new stick at the bench. Stephenson then stormed his way into the zone once Stone regained his lumber, dropping him the puck before he found a streaking Brett Howden, who proceeded to dance around the Panthers' D-men to tuck it past Bobrovsky to chase the supposed Conn Smythe front runner.
It took Vegas just 13 shots to earn a commanding 4-0 lead on their Sunshine State rivals. And the game wasn't even half over.
The Panthers wouldn't go down without a fight, though.
Less than 15 seconds into the third period, Florida stormed the Golden Knights' zone and began to wreak its usual chaos in front of Hill. This time, they were successful, as Anton Lundell got his hands on a puck that squirted out into the slot and wired it into a mostly empty cage, giving his team, at the very least, a fighting chance.
Alas, that chance would be squandered almost right away.
Two minutes later, Jack Eichel, who miraculously returned to the game after taking a whopper of a hit from Tkachuk in the second period, stormed down the wing (are you sensing a theme here?) and kept the puck in his feet as the Panthers' coverage fell apart. With most defenders focused on Eichel, Marchessault managed to slip into the slot undetected, where he received a perfectly-placed pass from Eichel before beating Lyon clean from three feet out.
Just as the Panthers appeared to show some life, the Golden Knights re-instated their four-goal lead. And then they bumped it to five.
The tally followed the night's typical course of events. Karlsson stripped a Panthers' forward at the Vegas blueline and proceeded to streak down the wing into Florida's zone. As he cut to the slot, Karlsson took the rebound of his first shot attempt and fired it right over to a trailing Michael Amadio, who potted it into the open net to put an exclamation point on the blowout currently in progress.
Tkachuk would ultimately beat Hill late in the third to make it 6-2 before getting ejected after taking his second 10-minute game misconduct, but it was too little too late. Howden added his second of the game to push the score to 7-2, and the Golden Knights sealed the deal to send the Panthers home licking their wounds facing an 0-2 series deficit.
If things keep going this way, there's a good chance these teams won't be heading back to Vegas at all.