RECAP: Panthers pushed to the brink after Knights hold on to win Game 4

SUNRISE, Fla. -- The Florida Panthers have been here before.

With their late rally falling short, the "Comeback Cats" are now facing a 3-1 series deficit in the Stanley Cup Final following a 3-2 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights in Game 4 at FLA Live Arena on Saturday.

In Round 1, the Panthers clawed back from a 3-1 series deficit to eliminate the Boston Bruins.

"Just go out there, win one game and force them to come back to Florida," Panthers forward Matthew Tkachuk said when asked about road ahead. "That's pretty much the message in this room. Same thing with Boston. That's all we wanted to do. Boston had it packed up. … We just thought short-term and get it back to Florida then, and we're going to do the same thing now."

Breaking the ice for the Knights, Chandler Stephenson took a pass from Zac Whitecloud, slipped behind the defense and beat Sergei Bobrovsky from the slot to make it 1-0 at 1:39 of the first period.

In the second period, Stephenson netted his second goal of the game and doubled the lead for the Knights when he fired a shot down the lane and into the cage to make it 2-0 at 7:28. Padding the lead even further for Vegas, William Karlsson lit the lamp soon after to make it 3-0 at 11:04.

Getting the Panthers on the board with a much-needed goal before the intermission, Brandon Montour found the back of the net for the second straight game when his shot ping-ponged off two Vegas defenseman before zooming past Adin Hill to cut the deficit down to 3-1 at 16:09.

Coming out hot to start the third period, the Panthers trimmed their deficit down to just one goal in the blink of an eye when Aleksander Barkov teed up a filthy backhand feed from Montour through the slot and fired a rocket of a shot from the right circle past Hill to make it 3-2 at 3:50.

"Big goal to get us back to a fighting chance," Panthers head coach Paul Maurice said.

As he has done all throughout the playoffs, Bobrovsky, who finished with 28 saves, kept the Panthers within striking distance for the rest of the period, including making a stellar stop on a point-blank shot from Jack Eichel in the slot to keep the deficit where it was with 7:58 left.

In search of the game-tying goal, the Panthers pulled Bobrovsky with just over two minutes left. After getting a few strong looks and some sustained zone time thanks to several key faceoffs wins from Barkov, they eventually earned a power play with just over 17 seconds left on the clock after Knights defenseman Alex Pietrangelo was whistled for a delay-of-game penalty.

Nearly coming up in the clutch with a late goal like he did in Game 3 -- and has done so many times throughout both the regular season and playoffs -- Tkachuk almost tied things up in the final seconds of regulation, but his last shot from the slot was kicked out by Hill's left pad.

Dealing with an undisclosed ailment, Tkachuk took only a handful of shifts in the third period.

"You obviously want to be out there playing," said Tkachuk, who leads the Panthers in goals (11), assists (13) and points (24) in the playoffs. "I was able to go out there at the end and try to make some magic happen late. Ran out of time. … Just trying to find a way out there to make it work tonight. Came up probably a second short."

Looking ahead, the Panthers have the blueprint for pulling off epic comebacks.

That uphill climb will start with Game 5 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on Tuesday.

"All we can do is think about the next one," Barkov said. "You've got to win four. It's 3-1, I know. They're one win away, we're three wins away. All we can do is think about one game and bringing it back to Florida. That's our goal. That's what we want to do in Vegas."

CATS QUOTES

"They tightened up, for sure. We were in their zone the whole rest of the game. That's going to happen when teams have a lead. They're probably going to sit back a little bit more. We have all the confidence in the world. The guys that were going out there were doing an unreal job." - forward Matthew Tkachuk on Florida's push in the third period

"There's no quit in him. When everyone sees that, it gets us going, too."- defenseman Brandon Montour on the play of captain Aleksander Barkov

"Matthew's been a grinder his whole life, and he was again tonight. We were just looking to get in some situation where he could use what he had to give us. Hoping to get on the power play a little bit earlier, I guess, and certainly at the end of the game." - head coach Paul Maurice on Matthew's Tkachuk's status

CATS NOTES

• Brandon Montour is the ninth defenseman in NHL history to score eight goals in a single postseason.

• Anton Lundell has earned a point in three of four games in the Stanley Cup Final.

• Aleksander Barkov went 15-for-24 (62.5%) in the faceoff circle.

• Sam Bennett led the Panthers with seven hits.

• Sergei Bobrovsky made nine high-danger saves.

• Florida led 71-59 in shot attempts at 5-on-5, according to NaturalStatTrick.com.

WHAT'S NEXT?

The Panthers will look to keep their postseason run alive and bring the Stanley Cup Final back to South Florida when they face off against the Knights in Game 5 at T-Mobile Arena on Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET.