RECAP: Knights erupt for 7 goals, take 2-0 series lead over Panthers

LAS VEGAS -- The Florida Panthers are heading home facing a 2-0 series deficit in the Stanley Cup Final following a tough 7-2 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights at T-Mobile Arena on Monday.

But after having already clawed their way back from 3-1 series deficit against the Presidents' Trophy-winning Boston Bruins in Round 1, the Panthers certainly aren't afraid of some adversity.

"It's never over," Panthers forward Anton Lundell said confidently after the loss. "We saw that against Boston. We still believe. We're down [2-0 in the series], but it's not over. We want to rest, recover and be ready to go on home ice. We'll get a lot of energy from our home fans."

Suffering a big blow on the back end early in the first period, Radko Gudas went down the tunnel and did not return after being hit in the head on a check from Knights forward Ivan Barbashev.

After the game, head coach Paul Maurice had no updates on Gudas.

"He's really important," Maurice said of Gudas, who ranks first in the playoffs with 81 hits. "He's a force, but he's also a much better hockey player. He makes the highlight film because he's such a physical guy, but the quality of his play is very, very high. Yeah, you miss him."

With the Knights earning a power play soon after that incident, Jonathan Marchessault, who leads Vegas with 12 goals in the playoffs, opened the scoring with a quick strike on the man advantage for the second straight game to make it 1-0 at 7:05.

Shortly after Adin Hill made six straight saves to shut down a power play for the Panthers, the Knights doubled their advantage to 2-0 when Alec Martinez beat a screened Sergei Bobrovsky at 17:59.

Keeping their foot on the gas, the Knights struck two more times within the first half of the second period. After Nicols Roy lit the lamp to make it 3-0 at 2:59, Brett Howden flew through the offensive zone and tucked a shot past Bobrovsky's extended pad to make it 4-0 at 7:10.

In search of a spark, the Panthers replaced Bobrovsky with Alex Lyon following that goal.

"We can be a little better in front of our goaltender," Maurice said of Bobrovsky, who leads all goalies in the playoffs with 11 wins. "He's been unbelievable. I got him out to keep him rested."

In the waning minutes of the second period, tempers flared once again between the Panthers and Knights when Matthew Tkachuk lit up Vegas star Jack Eichel with a booming hit near the opposing blue line.

While the hit itself was clean, Tkachuk was assessed a 10-minute misconduct due to the altercation that occurred after the hit when Knights players went after him in defense of Eichel. For Vegas, Barbashev also received a 10-minute misconduct along with Tkachuk.

Despite looking shaken up after the hit, Eichel, who said after the game that he believed the hit from Tkachuk was clean, was back on the bench for the Knights for the start of the third period.

"They might have thought that game was a little bit out of reach maybe in the second period, but we certainly didn't," Tkachuk said when asked about receiving the misconduct in addition to two minutes for roughing. "We've scored seven goals in a period before. You never know in playoffs."

Just 14 seconds into the third period, Lundell got the Panthers on the board when he fired a rebound past Hill for his second goal of the playoffs to cut the deficit to 4-1. But less than two minutes later, Marchessault answered back with a goal for the Knights to make it 5-1 at 2:10.

At 10:33, Michael Amadio scored to extend Vegas' lead to 6-1.

Right after returning from serving his misconduct, Tkachuk buried a rebound after a shot from Sam Bennett to cut the deficit down to 6-2 for the Panthers at 12:44. However, not too long after that, officials handed Tkachuk another 10-minute misconduct and ended his night for good.

To earn the penalty, Tkachuk appeared to only knock a Vegas player's stick out of his hands after the whistle.

With officials continuing to hand out misconducts from that point on, Anthony Duclair, Casey Fitzgerald, Nick Cousins and Eric Staal were also all eventually sent to Florida's dressing room.

At 17:52, Howden scored on the power play to lock in the 7-2 final for the Knights.

Vegas took care of business on home ice, and now Florida must do the same.

"They're halfway there, and hopefully they're thinking about that a little bit as they're coming to Florida," Tkachuk said. "I think that could work in our favor, but we definitely have to prepare and give everything into this one game here and get a little bit of that momentum back."

CATS QUOTES

"The parts of our game that we know we can improve, we're going to have to get to real fast. There's no doubt about that. We'll have a really simple game plan. I don't think it's about scoring goals in this series. It's about defending the rush, and we weren't great at that tonight." - head coach Paul Maurice

"They were the better team, for sure, today. We weren't able to play the game we wanted. We gave a little bit too much to them in the first and then it was hard to come back from that position."- forward Anton Lundell

CATS NOTES

• By suiting up for the Panthers in Game 2, defenseman Casey Fitzgerald joined his father, Tom, to become just the fifth father-son duo to play for the same franchise in the Stanley Cup Final.

• Anton Lundell's goal 14 seconds into the third period is tied for the ninth-fastest goal to begin a period in the history of the Stanley Cup Final.

• The Panthers and Knights combined for 148 penalty minutes in Game 2. That is the second-most combined penalty minutes in a single Stanley Cup Final game, per ESPN Stats & Info.

• Matthew Tkachuk is the second player in franchise history to score 10 goals in a single postseason.

• The Panthers led 3.91-2.77 in expected goals, per NaturalStatTrick.com.

• Florida led 44-24 in hits, but trailed Vegas 20-11 in blocked shots.

WHAT'S NEXT?

After dropping the first two games of the series, the Panthers will look for some home cooking of their own when they host the Knights for Game 3 at FLA Live Arena on Thursday at 8 p.m. ET.

For tickets, click Video: FLA@VGK, Gm2: Lundell fires a shot that deflects in.