Knights, Panthers ready to renew hostilities; Karlsson out

It’s been less than two weeks since the first meeting between the Panthers and Golden Knights since the Stanley Cup Final ended with the teams brawling at the final horn.

Thursday’s 7 p.m. rematch at T-Mobile Arena has the potential to stir up the emotions once again.

“My guess is some of it will carry over,” Knights coach Bruce Cassidy said after Wednesday’s practice. “Both teams probably play a little better when the temperature of the game goes up. So for our sake, we need that. Sometimes you get punched in the face, you get going.”

The Panthers have certainly responded well after that first meeting with the Knights (22-11-5). Florida (23-12-2) won 4-2 and hasn’t lost since, reeling off five straight wins.

It hasn’t been as smooth a path for the Knights. They lost their next game 5-2 to lowly Anaheim, then played well in a 3-2 win over a good Kings team before getting shut out by Seattle in the Winter Classic.

Now the Knights will be without forward William Karlsson, who suffered a lower-body injury and will be out at least the next two games. Forward Keegan Kolesar missed Wednesday’s practice with an illness, though Cassidy expressed optimism he would be available Thursday.

“We’re not where we want to be, let’s be honest,” Cassidy said. “We haven’t played 60-minute games on a regular basis. When we have, we’ve been pretty good. But it hasn’t happened consistently enough. We’re just not at our game right now.”

Cassidy hopes having the Winter Classic in the rearview mirror can help settle things down. The league’s marquee regular-season event has been hyped for weeks, including a reality show documenting the journey of both teams. Now it’s over, and the Knights can return their full attention to finding their game in the second half of the season.

“Putting that behind us is probably the last piece,” he said. “Now it’s time to grind and get to your game and accumulate points here as the season is going to get more difficult.”

Their first opportunity is against the streaking Panthers, who swarmed the Knights early in the first meeting. Florida took 15 of the game’s first 16 shots on goal and 29 of the first 30 shot attempts.

That early onslaught was somewhat expected because of the residual frustration the Panthers felt from losing the Final, but the Knights didn’t handle it well.

“The first period can’t be similar,” Cassidy said. “We need to start better, obviously. We kind of knew it was coming, but all of a sudden it hit us and we weren’t able to get out of our own way there for a while.”

The fireworks extended far beyond the six total goals scored in the final two periods. Kolesar, whose hit on Matthew Tkachuk helped alter the Final, was challenged to a fight by Ryan Lomberg early in the game. Then a late altercation between Tkachuk and Alex Pietrangelo escalated to a fracas at the final whistle that resulted in five misconduct calls.

While Cassidy said more intensity is expected after the teams ended up combining 80 penalty minutes, his players insist they have moved on.

“I think we’re just more worried about our game,” forward Michael Amadio said. “There’s obviously a bit of a rivalry there because of how last year ended, but we just have to make sure we come out at the drop of the puck and play a full 60.”

According to defenseman Nicolas Hague, the Knights don’t need to throw punches when they can simply point to the Stanley Cup championship banner in the rafters.

“We’ll show up and play (Thursday), and we’re always ready for any kind of game,” he said. “We don’t even have a score to settle. We beat them in the Final. We’re Stanley Cup champions, and they’re not. So if they want to turn it into that, it’s always a game we can play. But we’re going out to just win a hockey game, and we’ll focus on that.”

He doesn’t believe it will be difficult for the Knights to keep their eyes focused on the task at hand because they won’t have the same emotions to deal with as the Panthers might, coming into the building where they had to watch the Knights celebrate in June.

“I can’t speak to how they feel,” Hague said. “Maybe they are trying to do something because we beat them last year, while we’re obviously very happy and content with how the series went last year. We’re just worried about winning a hockey game on Jan. 4. That’s all it is.”

Contact Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AdamHillLVRJ on X.