Panthers vow to learn from mistakes in Game 1 loss in Stanley Cup Final

LAS VEGAS -- Few things have bothered the Florida Panthers over the past six weeks of hockey, over the ups and downs, over the disbelief, over the questions about their rightful place in these Stanley Cup Playoffs and just how far they would get, exactly. Which is why one little loss was never going to put them out, even if it came in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final.

Or, as Panthers coach Paul Maurice emphatically put it postgame, "Everybody just [expletive] breathe."

Because he is fine. His team is fine. They had lost a game, sure, going down 5-2 in Game 1 of the Final to the Vegas Golden Knights at T-Mobile Arena on Saturday. But there were six more games (potentially) to play in the best-of-7 series.

This was one game, on the road. No more, no less.

The Panthers had been through this before, and much worse, going down 3-1 to the record-setting Boston Bruins in the Eastern Conference First Round. That? That might have been concerning, had the Panthers not already felt like they were playing with house money, after only qualifying for the playoffs in the final days of the regular season.

This? This is nothing.

Which was why Maurice was, yet again, the voice of reason. The voice of understanding.

"We'll learn," Maurice said. "I've got faith in my group that we'll learn."

RELATED: [Complete Stanley Cup Final coverage]

Game 2 of the best-of-7 series is here Monday (8 p.m. ET; TNT, TBS, truTV, CBC, SN, TVAS).

It wasn't to say that the Panthers didn't acknowledge their mistakes. There are certainly places for improvement, areas where they weren't at their peak. They took too many penalties. They were a touch rusty after a nine-day layoff since the end of the conference final. Their decision-making wasn't always as good as they would have hoped.

But they also hit three posts, one each by Matthew Tkachuk, Aleksander Barkov and Brandon Montour. It could have been the difference of inches, in the end.

"We'll look at some things that we did with the puck in some short areas that we can improve on," Maurice said. "There's a bunch of things we can get a little bit better at, but it's going to be tight. It's going to be tight like that."

So, it wasn't all that hard to shrug all it off, to focus on the competitiveness of the game -- especially in the first two periods -- to take the good and slough off the not-as-good.

"That's part of this time of year," forward Eric Staal said. "That's how it works. You get yourself off the mat and be excited for the challenge in Game 2. That's what our focus will be."

The Panthers had scored first, with Staal netting his first goal in a Stanley Cup Final since 2006, a span of 17 years. It was a short-handed wraparound that Staal knocked off the stick of Golden Knights goalie Adin Hill at 9:40 of the first period. After two goals by Vegas, it was Anthony Duclair who scored with 11 seconds remaining in the second period after a face-off win by Barkov that took just 1.8 seconds to reach the back of the net. It marked the fifth time in the playoffs that the Panthers had scored in the final minute of a period.

The third, of course, did not go the way the Panthers had hoped. So, where did it get away from them?

"Well, the 3-2 goal made it tough," Maurice said. "When we only have two and they have three."

That was the goal by Zach Whitecloud, at 6:59 of the period, his shot beating Sergei Bobrovsky through traffic.

Which is to say that there really wasn't all that much to point to, not all that much to criticize. The Panthers were right there with the Golden Knights through the first two periods, right there throughout the first game of the Cup Final.

So, they could be relaxed after the game, nonchalant. They could take it in stride and move on.

This Panthers team has said over and over that no one has believed in them, that only they have believed in themselves, through long odds and unexpected wins, from three straight wins against the Bruins to a five-game takedown of the Toronto Maple Leafs to the only sweep of the Stanley Cup Playoffs against the Carolina Hurricanes in the conference final.

"The losing team talks about too many of something and the winning team talks about the fabulousness of all other things and it's 2-2 'til that [puck goes in the net]," Maurice said. "So, it was a tight game. Both teams make mistakes. We lost the first game in the Boston series, well, got a little better, then we lost two more, got a little better."

They know the road they've taken, how hard that path has been, as they have beaten the No. 1, No. 4 and No. 2 teams in the NHL in the regular season.

"It's the first game," Bobrovsky said. "It's a long series, lots of hockey ahead of us. We play, we learn, and we move on."

Or, as Maurice would say, just breathe.

There's lots more hockey to play.