SUNRISE, Fla. (AP) — It can be done. Such will be the thinking for the Florida Panthers for the next couple days, as they try to dig their way out of a 3-1 deficit in the Stanley Cup Final.
And they’ll think that for good reason — because they’ve already done it once.
Here they go again. The Panthers rallied from a 3-1 series hole in Round 1 against the Boston Bruins, and now they’ll have to do it again in this matchup with the Vegas Golden Knights. Game 5 is Tuesday night in Las Vegas, with the hosts just win away from hoisting the Cup for the first time.
They might have even started laying the groundwork for one last comeback try of the season by how they finished Game 4 — a 3-2 win for Vegas, but one where the Golden Knights saw a 3-0 lead that made it seem like they were in cruise control mode turn into a one-goal game early in the third on a goal by Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov.
But the equalizer that Florida wanted never came, even after pulling goalie Sergei Bobrovsky for an extra attacker with about 2 1/2 minutes left and getting a power play for the final 17.4 seconds. When the final horn sounded, there was a slew of punches thrown, a bunch of bodies driven into the ice. Tempers flared, but nothing found the back of the net.
And now it's simple: Win three in a row, or this run through the Stanley Cup playoffs won't be capped by claiming the Cup.
The comeback from 3-1 down has happened twice in the same postseason once before. Minnesota pulled it off in 2003; the Wild did it in Rounds 1 and 2.
But in the Cup final, it’s happened only once — and that was a mere 81 years ago. Toronto actually trailed the 1942 title series 3-0 to Detroit, and wound up rallying to take the next four games.
Further complicating matters is this: Vegas hasn't had a three-game losing streak since January. Florida's Cup hopes hinge on changing that.
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