Stone's five points help Golden Knights defeat Panthers

SUNRISE, Fla. -- Mark Stone had two goals and three assists when the Vegas Golden Knights defeated the Florida Panthers 7-2 at BB&T Center on Thursday.

Stone set a Vegas record with the five points and tied his NHL career high, which he had done twice as a member of the Ottawa Senators.
"Games like this happen, and then there's games where you feel like you don't touch the puck all night," Stone said. "I thought everybody that went on the ice tonight controlled a lot of the game."
WATCH: [All Golden Knights vs. Panthers highlights]
Marc-Andre Fleury passed Henrik Lundqvist of the New York Rangers for fifth place in NHL history with his 460th win. Fleury had 375 wins in 13 seasons with the Pittsburgh Penguins and has 85 in his third season with Vegas. He made 23 saves.
Max Pacioretty had two goals and one assist for the Golden Knights (28-21-7), who ended their season-long eight-game road trip 4-3-1.
"Tonight was a tough game to play given the circumstances," Pacioretty said. "We've been away from home for a long time and it would be pretty easy to have a letdown there and have a stinker of a game, but we know how valuable those points are. We know the position we're in. We know we can't have any slide."
Mike Hoffman and Vincent Trocheck scored for the Panthers (29-18-6), who are 1-2-1 in their past four games after a season-high six-game winning streak.
Sergei Bobrovsky made 23 saves before being replaced by Samuel Montembeault at 8:53 of the third period after Jonathan Marchessault's power-play goal gave Vegas a 6-2 lead. Montembeault made nine saves.

Pacioretty broke a 2-2 tie at 12:18 of the second period, 26 seconds after Trocheck scored on a wraparound.
"We tied it at 2, we have all the momentum and it seems like we just feel like we're going to coast the rest of the way," Trocheck said. "It's a 2-2 game against one of the best teams in the League. Got to come out that next shift, that's one of the most important shifts of the game, we get outworked on that one. Every goal we gave up, they outworked us."
Stone gave Vegas a 1-0 lead at 2:15 before Hoffman tied it 1-1 with a power-play goal at 16:22.
Stone put Vegas ahead 2-1 at 1:41 of the second period when he carried the puck from his end, got around defenseman Mike Matheson and shot under the crossbar.
Before Trocheck tied it 2-2, Fleury stopped Brett Connolly on a penalty shot at 6:40.
"I thought [Fleury] made a couple of big saves, including the penalty shot," Golden Knights coach Pete DeBoer said. "Those are momentum-changing moments in the game, and I thought he really gave us a big save there and some momentum that shifted our way. And then I thought the group dug in in the second and third and really started to impose our will on the game and got rewarded for that."

Vegas outshot Florida 15-3 in the third period and held the Panthers to one shot in the final 12 minutes.
Nate Schmidt made it 4-2 at 17 seconds of the third period with a wrist shot from the point. Shea Theodore scored a shorthanded goal at 4:11 to make it 5-2. Pacioretty made it 7-2 at 15:06.
"The game was there, and then after the fourth goal, we stopped playing," Panthers coach Joel Quenneville said. "We were outworked, outhustled, and outcompeted, whatever term you want to use."

They said it

"Wow. I mean, he's a good player every night, but that was another level tonight, some of the plays he made. Not just offensively but defensively too. I thought he was great." -- Golden Knights coach Pete DeBoer on forward Mark Stone

"Definitely got outworked. Didn't have enough urgency. [It was a] 2-2 game halfway through the second period and we managed to give up five more goals. It's embarrassing. We should all be embarrassed. It's not the way you want to play if you're trying to make the playoffs." -- Panthers center Vincent Trocheck

Need to know

Fleury joined Roberto Luongo as the only NHL goalies with 20 saves on penalty shots since records began being tracked in 1934-35. … Hoffman became the fifth player to score at least 20 goals in each of his first two seasons with the Panthers, joining Ray Whitney, Mark Parrish, Kristian Huselius and Michael Frolik. … Vegas' 39-25 shot advantage was the fourth consecutive game it outshot its opponent by at least 10. … Matheson did not play in the third period after being benched. … Florida forward Aleksander Barkov missed a third consecutive game with a knee injury. … Panthers defenseman MacKenzie Weegar was scratched because of illness. … Panthers center Brian Boyle missed a third consecutive game because of an upper-body injury.

What's next

Golden Knights: Host the Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday (10 p.m. ET; ATTSN-RM, FS-CR, NHL.TV)
Panthers:Host the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday (7 p.m. ET; FS-F, ATTSN-PT, NHL.TV)