Can the Florida Panthers even up the Stanley Cup Final in Game 4 Saturday?

By the skin of their teeth, the Florida Panthers eked out their first Stanley Cup Final win in franchise history after Matthew Tkachuk tied Game 3 Thursday with a goal in the dying minutes and Carter Verhaeghe scored the overtime winner. The Panthers now trail the Vegas Golden Knights 2-1 entering Saturday’s pivotal Game 4 at FLA Live Arena in Sunrise.

Should we expect to see things knotted up 2-2 by the time the Final shifts back to Vegas next week? Frank Seravalli and Mike McKenna discussed it on Friday’s edition of Daily Faceoff Live.

Frank Seravalli: We’ve got a series. The Florida Panthers win their first Stanley Cup Final game in franchise history with a 3-2 overtime defeat of the Vegas Golden Knights. They were one shot away, in fact just a couple minutes away from the Golden Knights salting away a 3-0 series lead. And instead the complexion of this series is totally different, if not for the game kind of feeling somewhat similar throughout, in which the Panthers almost shot themselves in the foot a bunch of different times with the unnecessary penalties that they took. When you look at this series now, do you feel any differently about it?

Mike McKennna: It still feels like the same series to me, because last game, Game 3 here, was a perfect example of who the Florida Panthers are. They were getting relaxed for a lot of that game, Frank, and they still found a way to come back and win. And they did this against Boston. You wonder, is this the spark that Florida needs to get their mojo back? Because there’s a couple key facets. They need to have Tkachuk playing at the top of his game, even though he did leave Game 3 to concussion protocol for a while. Comes back, scores a huge goal. Brandon Montour, he hadn’t had a point in 10 games, scores a goal. And Sergei Bobrovsky was unbelievable.

So those were the things that they need, but I always judge how a team’s playing by the number of odd-man rushes in either direction. And it felt last night like it was 20-0 in favor of Vegas. I do think Florida at least defended the front of their net a little better, but they gave up way too much on the rush and those bad penalties are going to eat them up. It’s just a microcosm of that team, Frank. They’re hard to predict, because can they score big goals at big times, and you just can’t let them hang around in games. And if they’re a little tighter defensively, they do give themselves a chance to win.

Seravalli: Yeah, and I think if you’re mapping out a blueprint for a chance to win, though, it’s kind of right in front of you if you’re the Florida Panthers. The one thing I think they did a lot better was, they just focused on playing. Yeah, the took unnecessary penalties, but they were not penalties of frustration. They weren’t stupid after-the-whistle scrum things, which we’ve seen plenty of in this series. They had their game face on, they were ready to play, and if they could cut down on the unnecessary fouls that they had, and give their penalty kill a chance to really settle in – they’ve given up two (power play) goals in each of the first three games in the series for six goals so far against the Vegas Golden Knights power play. That has to change. If you could just cut that down to one, and also not get greedy at the same time, but hello, your power play is 0 for 12 in the series, maybe make a change on that front. One or the other, plus, Sergei Bobrovsky continues to bounce back.

You can watch the full episode here…