Panthers in familiar position following Game 4 loss in Cup Final

SUNRISE, Fla. -- For the Florida Panthers, this feels all too familiar.

Down 3-1 in a best-of-7 series? Heading back out on the road after a Game 4 loss at FLA Live Arena? Facing a superior team, standings-wise, ready to finish them off for a tidy series win?

Yeah, we've seen this before.

This was, of course, exactly where things stood seven weeks ago, when the Panthers heard the buzzer sound at the end of Game 4 of the Eastern Conference First Round.

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And it's where it stands again after a 3-2 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights on Saturday. The Golden Knights are now one win from lifting the Stanley Cup, which they could do as soon as Game 5 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on Tuesday (8 p.m. ET; TNT, truTV, CBC, TVAS, SN).

But don't expect it to be that easy.

"The confidence is there," Florida defenseman Brandon Montour said. "It's nice that obviously we did it before, so the belief's got to be there. That's the only way out of this. Obviously, we're in a hole, but I like our chances to get back.

"We've got a fight in this group and guys are desperate to win these next ones."

Flash back: On April 23, the Bruins had just won two straight games at FLA Live Arena, coming into South Florida and asserting themselves in a manner commensurate with the heavyweights they were and had been all regular season. That included a 6-2 win in Game 4, which made it seem like the Panthers were headed, shortly, for a summer of fishing and golf.

Instead, they are still playing.

The Panthers picked themselves up, dusted themselves off, and proceeded to win three straight games against the team which had the best regular season in NHL history. They won't shy away from that history.

"We'll tell stories over the next two days for sure, reminders of the energy level we brought into Game 5 in Boston," coach Paul Maurice said. "And we'll celebrate it. We'll celebrate it before the puck drops."

But can they do it again?

In some ways, the Panthers are in a better position than they were against the Bruins. Although they got to within 3-2 in the third period both Game 4s, in the first round, the Bruins were able to put the game out of reach with three unanswered goals. Against the Golden Knights, the Panthers were in it right until the end, a desperation honed over four rounds of come-from-behind wins and last-second game-tying goals.

There is their goalie too. The Sergei Bobrovsky playing now is not the same one from the first round. Ahead of Game 5 against Boston, there remained the very real possibility that Maurice might return to Alex Lyon, who had started the first three games of the series.

But that was before Bobrovsky went on the run that took out the Toronto Maple Leafs and Carolina Hurricanes, before there was any talk of him and the Conn Smythe Trophy, the award given to the most valuable player in the playoffs.

"We've been in this position before," Bobrovsky said. "It all comes down to one moment at a time, one period at a time."

In other ways, though, they are in a worse position.

It was Matthew Tkachuk who scored the overtime winner in Game 5 against Boston, who extended the season and allowed the Panthers to get wins in Game 6 and Game 7. But Tkachuk is clearly not himself. He played 16:40 in Game 4, with only four shifts coming in the third period, including 46 seconds over the first 14:59.

Tkachuk declined to discuss what limited him and whether the two days of rest between Games 4 and 5 might allow him to play more on Tuesday. But he did project confidence, a result of being there before and getting the job done.

"It was just a really short-term mindset," Tkachuk said. "Go in there, get the first goal in Boston. Get it to overtime. The longer games go against all these teams, all the pressure starts to shift to them. So if we go into Vegas, the longer it goes, the longer the game goes, the longer the series goes, all the pressure goes to them."

It starts that way. One win and then another and another.

"You've got to win four," captain Aleksander Barkov said. "It's 3-1. I know, they're one win away, we're three wins away, but all we can do is think about one game, bringing it back to Florida, and that's our goal. That's what we want to do in Vegas, go out there and try to win that game."

The Panthers have to put this one aside. They have to forget the loss and remember the wins. Remember what they did seven weeks ago, why they are still playing, and how they pulled off the magic and the upset and the ride of their lives.

"Just go out there, win one game and force them to come back to Florida," Tkachuk said. "That's pretty much the message in this room. Same thing with Boston. Boston had packed it up and moved on to the next round when we played them. So, we just thought short term, get it back to Florida.

"We're going to do the same thing now."

They believe in themselves. They know they can do it. After all, they've already done it once before.