The Vegas Golden Knights continued a trend of new sports champions, winning their first Stanley Cup with a 9-3 win over the Florida Panthers in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final on Tuesday night.
Vegas peppered the Florida net with shots all game and used a four-goal second period to pull away and clinch the championship in its second trip to the Final and only its sixth season in the NHL.
The Denver Nuggets won their first NBA title on Monday night after joining the league after the NBA-ABA merger in 1976.
“It’s been a great ride, and the fans and the community have been unbelievable since we came in,” Vegas forward Jonathan Marchessault told the media in a postgame press conference. “I remember in Game 4, we wanted to bring it back home with a chance to win it all, and we did. Our team delivered tonight. We were dominating the whole game, and I was just so proud to do it in front of our fans. It’s a moment I’ll never forget.”
Marchessault was one of six players on this year’s roster remaining from its inaugural season, which also was the last time they reached the championship round. Five of those six were inserted into the starting lineup for Tuesday’s game.
“I thought it’d be a good way to get the guys’ attention and reward the guys who laid the foundation for this hockey team,” Vegas head coach Bruce Cassidy explained as he met with the media. “I apologized to Will Carrier [because] I could only start one left winger, but I thought it’d be nice and see if it gave us a little juice. Whether it did or not, I don’t know, but they deserved it.”
Vegas captain Mark Stone opened the scoring with a shorthanded goal just over halfway through the first period as he stole a pass near center ice, skated up the boards, gave a few head fakes in front of the net, paused, and put one past Sergei Bobrovsky. Nicolas Hague scored in a scramble in front of the net to make it 2-0 Vegas after one.
“It felt good,” Hague told the media about his goal after the game. “I was just praying they wouldn’t call it back for goalie interference because you never know anymore.”
Florida got on the board with an Aaron Ekblad goal early in the second, but Vegas seized the game from there. Stone, defenseman Alec Martinez, and forward Reilly Smith all scored, while Michael Amadio came crashing in to add another in the final seconds to make it a 6-1 game.
After Ivan Barbashev scored Vegas’ seventh goal of the game, Florida came within four goals thanks to Sam Reinhart and Sam Bennett. However, Stone added an empty-netter to complete the hat trick, and Nick Roy scored for good measure with just over a minute remaining.
Vegas played keep away with little challenge from Florida for the final seconds as players leaped off the bench and onto the ice to celebrate a championship season and hoist the Stanley Cup.
“Everybody wrote us off after we missed the playoffs last year,” Stone said after the win. “We had that ‘us versus the world’ mentality, and here we are standing as the best team in the world.”
Marchessault, who assisted on the Hague goal, was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as the Most Valuable Player in the NHL Playoffs, finishing with the most goals and second most points in the league as the Golden Knights joined the Vegas Aces (WNBA) as championship teams from the area.
“We’ve been here for six years, and we’ve grinded,” the MVP added. “We wanted to get back that feeling we had the first year and to get back to the dance. We knew that this year, going back at it, things would be different. We definitely took a different approach, and it was definitely fun to be a part of it.”