Stanley Cup Final blog: Carter Verhaeghe

Florida Panthers forward Carter Verhaeghe will be keeping his own blog throughout the 2023 Stanley Cup Final against the Vegas Golden Knights. He will check in regularly with behind-the-scenes access. In his third entry, Verhaeghe discusses Game 2, a 7-2 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights at T-Mobile Arena on Monday. Vegas leads the best-of-7 series 2-0, and Game 3 is at FLA Live Arena on Thursday (8 p.m. ET; TNT, TBS, truTV, SN, CBC, TVAS).

Verhaeghe talked about the breakdowns his team had in the game, especially around goalie Sergei Bobrovsky, who was pulled 7:10 into the second period after allowing four goals. He also discussed his breakaway chance on Vegas goalie Adin Hill early in the game.

Obviously, we lost the game tonight. Vegas was the better team. They played a game that was better than ours.

We just have to forget the whole thing and move on. That is all we can do it at this point. It is not about staying on an even keel in this case, it is just forgetting about this completely and move on.

You know, I had that breakaway in the first period, got in behind the defense a little bit. Thinking about it now, I probably could have made a better play on that. I had a chance to score, and I didn't do it. Hopefully, I will score when the next chance comes along.

I know Bobrovsky got pulled, but it wasn't his fault. We gave up too much in our own end, and Vegas capitalized on every chance they had. Like I said, they were the better team again tonight.

It doesn't matter that they scored seven goals, a loss is a loss. It doesn't matter if you lose 7-2 or 3-2 in 10 overtimes, it is still a loss. We just have to learn from this and come back stronger in Game 3.

We have done it before. We came back in the series against the Boston Bruins in the first round. We are confident as a team in what we can do. We have confidence at home and we feed off our fans. So, we just have to go home and win a game and see what happens from there.

With tomorrow being a long travel day, it is all about rest and recovery now. We won't fly until tomorrow morning, so it's about getting back to the hotel tonight and getting a good rest, getting up in the morning and getting on the plane to go. It is a long flight back to Florida.