In Only Their Sixth Season of Existence, The Vegas Golden Knights Are STANLEY CUP CHAMPIONS!!
This is one of those dream gamer stories for hockey, where you're writing in advance and the outcome is so far out of reach after two periods that you know who's gonna win. The Vegas Golden Knights put this puppy out of reach with four unanswered goals in the second period to take a 6-1 lead into the last intermission. Seriously. Get easier. They are your 2023 Stanley Cup champions.
Unbelievable ride for the Florida Panthers, though. Let's acknowledge them. They knocked off the Presidents' Trophy-winning Boston Bruins after their historic regular season. It took a 3-1 rally in the opening round. Even getting to the playoffs was an achievement for Florida. To run all the way to the Stanley Cup Final is unbelievable.
...Unfortunately for friend of Barstool Brooks Koepka and the Panthers, they ran into a straight-up buzzsaw in the Golden Knights. This easily could've been a sweep. Thanks to some Matthew Tkachuk-driven grit in Game 3, the underdogs at least forced Vegas to close it out at home in Sin City for Game 5. That turned out to not be a problem whatsoever.
Any notion that the Ps could pull this one out dissipated once Alex Pietrangelo made this length-of-the-ice feed to Jack Eichel, who set up Alec Martinez for a sweet goal to make it 3-1 in favor of the newly crowned champs:
From there it was over. You talk about punctuating your postseason run. FFS.
Captain Mark Stone rose to the occasion and notched a hat trick thanks to an empty-net goal. He opened the scoring with a short-hander more than halfway through the first period.
Here was the long-range final tally for the hatty:
Stone made some history in the process, too:
Uhhh…what else can be said? It's hilarious to me that the Original Six teams are struggling so hard (relatively speaking). The Maple Leafs haven't won the Cup since 1967. Imagine Toronto's fan base and players watching the Golden Knights waltz into the league, crush the expansion draft and build a contender on the fly who's immediately more well-adjusted to playoff hockey than they are. OUCH. I'm talking to myself a bit since I grew up a Leafs fan. Tough scene.
Then you have the Blackhawks who are hoping Connor Bedard is the answer to their prayers (he very well may be). The Canadiens are a mess in the aftermath of Carey Price's prime. Love me some Rangers and Igor Shesterkin, but they don't look like they play the same sport as the Golden Knights do at the moment. Detroit is still rebuilding. And Boston? Shoot, the city has had its full of championships in this lifetime, no? But it'll be tough for the Bs to shake off that Presidents' Trophy curse.
IDK. Considering how dick-tight the playoff race was this season for the West in particular, I can't make any overarching, bold proclamations of a "GOLDEN KNIGHTS DYNASTY" narrative, though recency bias would make that a tempting shortcut to take. instead of looking too far ahead, let's enjoy the fact that Vegas pulled this off in the first place. It's seriously incredible. Closest things I can recall to this in the major North American sports are the Carolina Panthers and Jacksonville Jaguars running to the Conference Championship Game in their second seasons.
…But like, the Golden Knights have been in the NHL's Final Frozen Four in four of their six seasons. Feels as if they aren't going anywhere. Again, quite a tight West we had this past season. Congrats to Vegas. Holy shit can you even fathom how lit it's about to be tonight!?!? GO VEGASSSSSSSS.
PS holy shit, some rando on Twitter called this a looooong time ago:
Twitter @MattFitz_gerald/TikTok