The star player, G, suffered an injury as a result of after Las Vegas won their opening season match.
It took several years and a few heartbreaking postseason meetings, but the Florida Panthers finally learned what it felt like to leave Las Vegas as winners.
Including the playoffs, Florida had been 0-7-1 when playing in Vegas.
It was an ugly streak in a building that was quickly becoming a house of horrors. Thankfully, the Panthers were able to exercise any demons with Thursday’s 4-1 win.
Unfortunately, as do most things in Las Vegas, Florida’s win came at a cost, as two key forwards were lost to injuries.
Vegas jumped out to an early 1-0 lead when Pavel Dorofeyev pounced on a Mark Stone rebound that came off Sergei Bobrovsky’s pad and went right to a driving Dorofeyev in the slot.
A late period power play would produce a game-tying goal for the Panthers, and it came off the stick of Sam Bennett following a great shift by the Florida’s second power play unit.
Panthers captain Sasha Barkov went to the locker room soon after the goal due to taking an Alec Martinez elbow to the face behind the Vegas goal.
It didn’t appear there was any intent by Martinez on the play, but Barkov would ultimately be ruled out of the game with an upper-body injury.