How the Golden Knights dominated the Panthers to take a 2-0 series lead in the Stanley Cup Final

Publish date: 2024-04-13

Jack Eichel has experienced a lot of firsts in his postseason debut this spring. Monday, he checked another box: coming back from a thunderous hit and helping his team cement a monumental win to claim a 2-0 series lead in the Stanley Cup Final.

“I’m not really surprised, to be honest,” said Jonathan Marchessault, who might have been the only person watching who felt that way. “He’s been playing playoff hockey all year for us. I mean, he’s been great. When you have a high-quality player like that, you want to be the go-to guy on the team, you have to step up in those occasions, in my mind. That’s what he’s been doing, and that’s why we’re in this situation.”

The hit by Matthew Tkachuk was strategically timed to get his team back into a game he saw slipping away, and Eichel’s response made certain it didn’t. Tkachuk was struggling to generate offensively, so he leaned into the physical side of his game to shake things up — literally and figuratively.

“It was a clean hit,” Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said. “That’s hockey. As a group, it was great to see (Eichel) come back. Not only does it give us juice, but sometimes it can take juice away from the other team if they see a guy come back.”

VoxVib

How the Golden Knights dominated the Panthers to take a 2-0 series lead in the Stanley Cup Final