It seemed likely that it was going to happen with how they were playing in this series, but the Vegas Golden Knights are Stanley Cup Champions for the first time in their six-season franchise history.
They did it with a dominant 9-3 win over the Florida Panthers, and bested them in just five games with a 4-1 series win.
The Panthers were already without Matthew Tkachuk for the game, so it was going to be an uphill battle, and while they kept things tight for the first half of the first period, the dam broke pretty quickly.
First, the Golden Knights capitalized on the power play … for the Panthers. Mark Stone did Mark Stone things and generated a turnover at the blueline, creating a 2-on-1 where he held onto the puck, then had the audacity to stop in front of the net before firing it past Sergei Bobrovsky for the opening goal.
And then less than two minutes later, Jack Eichel made a nifty move to create chaos in front of the net, and with the puck loose in the crease, Nick Hague came storming in to poke the puck home to give them a 2-0 lead.
The Panthers did start to make a game out of it early in the second though, as just 2:15 in, Aaron Ekblad blasted a shot from the point past Adin Hill to 2-1. However, that was a close as they were going to get, because after that it got a bit out of hand.
After that, the Golden Knights did some scoring in bunches to pretty much determine the Cup winner in the second period. Midway through the second period, an Alec Martinez snipe and substantial pressure creating a goal from Reilly Smith came less than two minutes apart to make it 4-1 and then late in the frame, Stone blasted home his second and some persistence from Michael Amadio in front made it 6-1 in a less than three minutes apart at the end of the second.
And the third period was mostly a formality to the finish line. Ivan Barbashev, Sam Reinhart, Sam Bennett, and Stone’s hat trick goal all came in garbage time, but it didn’t impact the eventual result. The Golden Knights took the game 9-3, and win the Stanley Cup.
It’s the first time in the Golden Knights franchise history that they’ve won the Stanley Cup in just six seasons, delivering on a promise from owner Bill Foley to win a Cup in their first six seasons.
They accomplish it in their second trip to the Stanley Cup Final after making it in their inaugural season, and their fourth time making the final four in their six-year history.
For the Panthers, they finish their second Stanley Cup Final similarly to their first back in 1996, although this time they got their first win in the Cup Final in franchise history.
They enter the offseason with more than $10M in cap space and the most significant piece on the way out being Radko Gudas if they re-sign nobody.
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