Golden Knights vs. Panthers: Both Teams Skate into The Finals

Dude...

It seems that the worst is the best in the East while the best who many thought were frauds are the best in the West. The Florida Panthers shocked everyone once again by barely giving the Carolina Hurricanes any hope whatsoever completing the series in a competitive yet unfortunate series sweep to advance to the Stanley Cup Finals. They will be joined by the Vegas Golden Knights who nearly completed a sweep of their own before letting the Stars have a couple of wins and winning in six games. As I got my thoughts and predictions last time crushed by these two outcomes follow along as I recap both Conference Finals and give possibly more wrong thoughts and predictions.

- Conference Finals Summaries

Florida Panthers vs Carolina Hurricanes:

Going into this series it was determined that the Panthers were once again going against the best team in the playoffs. For almost every game they held their own on defense not losing a game by more than a goal, but it was Sergei Bobrovsky that was the main difference for their losses. As I stated previously game 1 was gonna have a significant determination on how this series was going to play out. After a quadruple overtime victory on the road for Florida with Bobrovsky having 63(!) saves and Matthew Tkachuk finally pulling through in the 4th it seemed that all the Hurricanes’ best efforts were put to no use. The next three games were just Bobrovsky showing off his inhuman reflexes and Tkachuk being the Hurricanes’ sleep-paralysis demon, as they ended up being swept in the conference finals for the third time in franchise history and Panthers become the first team since the 2017 Nashville Predators to make the Stanley Cup Finals as the lowest seed.

Dallas Stars vs Vegas Golden Knights:

This series was also a very big shock to me personally because although the series went six

games it seemed far from a competitive series. The biggest story outside of Jamie Benn’s

two-game suspension (which the Stars won both of those games by the way) was the lacking

performance we saw from Jake Oettinger this series. It can be true that after a couple of the

series that Oettinger had before he was just flat out exhausted from the workload he had in the first two series, but this series loss solely wasn’t on him as the Golden Knights were just overall the better team. Regardless, the way the Stars went out was incredibly disappointing from the season that they had as outside of Miro Heiskanen the defenseman was pathetic throughout this series and a 6-0 loss in Game 6. Vegas had an awe-inspiring series from the former backup goalie in Adin Hill and a solid series from Mark Stone and they’re possibly in the best form they’ve been in all year going into the SCF.

- Stanley Cup Final Preview

Florida Panthers vs Vegas Golden Knights:

After how both teams performed in the previous round to get here I don’t see how this series can not be competitive. Both teams are coming in their best forms all year and the Panthers are red hot while most of the Golden Knights players have been here before. The big story here is, after being away from competitive hockey for more than a week, how will the underdog stay hot against a team with less rust in Vegas? Adin Hill has shown that his run of performances wasn’t a short-term fluke and he’ll once again be tested in going against another highly touted goalie in Sergei Bobrovsky. The Panthers haven’t looked like a pushover at any point since Game 4 in the first round against Boston, yet they also haven’t faced a team where their depth of forwards and5-on-5 play has looked as strong as the Golden Knights.

Prediction: Golden Knights in 6

- Conn Smythe Winner

This trophy goes to the best player on the Stanley Cup winner and would make it seem that Jack Eichel or even William Karlsson who had been the leading goal scorer for Vegas would be the easy choices. Meanwhile, a team like the Panthers will need more than one of those players to do most of the pushing and instead have someone make a difference. The player I believe will make a difference for VGK is their alternate captain Jonathan Marchessault who has nine goals and eight assists in 17 total games this postseason. He has given the Golden Knights a huge boost almost this entire run and this could be the series he goes into stardom and helps bring the cup to Sin City. Don’t be surprised also if the storybook hero in goalie Adin Hill comes up with a huge performance, especially if he outworks Bobrovsky, to win the trophy as well.

Conn Smythe Winner: Jonathan Marchessault