Sunrise. Fla—-okay VGK fans… I will try and keep it short and sweet. In short, it did not look good.

Carter Verhaeghe and Sam Reinhart netted power-play goals within a span of 1 minute and 59 seconds in the third period. The Florida Panthers took a 4-2 victory over the Vegas Golden Knights on Saturday, heading into their Christmas break in a rematch of last season’s Stanley Cup Final.

Florida saw goals from Sam Bennett and Gustav Forsling, with Matthew Tkachuk, Aleksander Barkov, and Brandon Montour contributing two assists each. Sergei Bobrovsky made 23 saves.

“They got our best tonight,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. “We were pretty good. … We couldn’t win the Cup or lose the Cup tonight, but we did as well as we could have.”

It seems like the Vegas Golden Knights are facing some challenges lately after a strong start to their title defense this season. Losing three straight games is a concern, compared to their impressive initial record of 11-0-1. Mark Stone and Pavel Dorofeyev scored for Vegas. Back-up goalie Jiri Patera had 38 saves on the day.

During Saturday’s first period, Kolesar got fight with Florida’s Ryan Lomberg, concluding with Lomberg throwing the sole punch, dropping Kolesar to the ice. Obviously there is still bad blood from the Stanley cup when Kolesar sidelined Tkachuk with a fractured sternum.

“He gave me the chance to kind of even the score. Obviously, he’s a pretty tough customer,” Lomberg said.

Bennett equalized for Florida, and Forsling scored, giving the Panthers the lead. Dorofeyev then tied the game for Vegas with 22.3 seconds left in the second period. He redirected a pass from Ben Hutton, initially deflected by Panthers defenseman Dmitry Kulikov, into the open side of the net. Verhaeghe secured the lead for Florida with a goal from the high slot just 17 seconds into a power play, and Reinhart added insurance about 2 minutes later, with Tkachuk effectively screening Patera on the play.

VGK went 0-3-0 on its trip east to play Carolina, Tampa Bay and Florida. The South East seems to have their number.

“It’s probably a good time for the break,” Stone said. “This wasn’t our best road trip by any means. We didn’t play enough 60-minute hockey in those three games, but we’ve been through adversity before and we’ve got to come out of the other side of the break rested and recovered.”

Up next the Las Vegas Golden Knights are at Anaheim to face off with the Ducks.

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By Vincent Quezada

Photo Credit: Associated Press