Panthers-Golden Knights game provided a reminder: No love is lost between these two teams

Ryan Lomberg insists the game wasn’t circled on his calendar. At this point, Lomberg said, the Florida Panthers want to treat every regular-season game equally regardless of the emotions or history that precede the matchup.

But as Saturday’s game against the Vegas Golden Knights got closer — as the Panthers got ready to play the team that knocked them out of the Stanley Cup Finals — yeah, the feelings returned.

“Once you start doing the video and you see some familiar faces and their logo and stuff, it kind of brings back some not-so-good memories,” Lomberg said. “As it got closer to game time, I think the blood started boiling.”

Lomberg took things into his own hands in the first period, dropping the gloves and fighting Keegan Kolesar midway through the first period.

The fight lasted ... one punch, with Lomberg sending Kolesar to the ice with a single right hook.

Remember, it was Kolesar who had the open-ice hit on Matthew Tkachuk in Game 3 of the Panthers’ Stanley Cup Final series against the Golden Knights.

“Credit to him for letting me get redemption for last year,” Lomberg said. “He’s the guy that caught Chucky to take them out of the series. He gave me the chance to kind of even the score and obviously he’s a pretty tough customer to come back.”

If nothing else came from the Panthers’ 4-2 win over the Golden Knights on Saturday, it’s that there is still no love loss between Florida and Vegas.

In addition to the Lomberg knockout punch in the first period, there were three separate multi-player scrums, including one in the final seconds of the game that resulted in five game misconducts.

“It was an emotional game,” said forward Carter Verhaeghe, who scored the game-winning goal in the third period. “I mean, they beat us and they won the cup. I mean, it sucks for us, but they played well. ... Definitely every time we’re going to play now, I think it’s definitely gonna be a high intensity kind of game.”

Lomberg started the festivities and he had no qualms saying it was intentional. He and Kolesar had exchanged words prior to the faceoff in the Panthers’ offensive zone. When Florida center Kevin Stenlund was tossed from the faceoff circle, Lomberg pointed his stick to William Lockwood to tell him to take the facoff. Lomberg wasn’t wasting his chance.

“We were just kind of chatting there,” Lomberg said. “Earlier he said, ‘You know, you kind of missed your chance last season. You should have found me then.’ I told him I was in a cast, so there was not really too much I could about it. He was obviously understanding and gave me my shot there. So yeah, I told Locky to take it because I’m not jumping in there.”

Instead, he jumped toward Kolesar, and with one swift blow sent the Vegas winger to the ground.

Florida’s bench, naturally, loved it.

“He’s always going to have guys’ backs,” Panthers center Sam Bennett said. “He’s a warrior and that was awesome to see.”

Added Panthers coach Paul Maurice: “I don’t have a problem with it — as long as we win. ... that’s what is special about hockey. It’s the violence in an appropriate way and the grace and beauty of the game. The hitting is a violent collision — I’m not talking about a fight, but the hit — and that’s what makes hockey different in so many ways. There’s still a lot of ballet out there and then it’s a bare knuckles fight sometimes, too.”

The Panthers balanced both of those facets of the game Saturday. They dominated Vegas in shot attempts (81-44), shots on goal (42-25), scoring chances (33-17) and high-danger chances (16-9).

Florida erased a 1-0 deficit in the second period on goals from Bennett and Gustav Forsling. When Vegas tied the game 2-2 in the final minute of the second period, the Panthers scored twice on the power play in the third period, first by Verhaeghe and then Sam Reinhart, to pull ahead for good.

“We were all really happy with our game tonight,” Lomberg said. “We were hard. We were fast. We were physical when we needed to be. It’s a good one to leave off on with the break.”