Vegas Pulled the Unthinkable...Not Folding Under Pressure

Dude...

The Vegas Golden Knights have won it all in their sixth season as an NHL franchise after falling just short in their first season when they last were in the Stanley Cup Finals. After a path where many thought they weren’t going to win each series, except the Winnipeg series in the first round, they exceeded expectations and fought until the end. Both teams ended this series severely damaged to where Matthew Tkachuk was playing through a broken sternum (!) during Game 4 of the SCF. Follow along as I break down what happened throughout the series, review the Golden Knights playoff run, and go back to my predictions for this series.

- Stanley Cup Final Summary

Florida Panthers vs Vegas Golden Knights:

Before the series started a lot of people assumed that the lopsided conference finals were gonna make for a very competitive Stanley Cup Finals, but in the first two games that wasn’t the case. Vegas dominated the first two games outscoring Florida 12-4 both games total after Sergei Bobrovsky seemed to be letting nothing through playing the Eastern Conference. Jonathan Marchessault and Jack Eichel shined bright early as Eichel had 4 assists and Marchessault led all skaters scoring three goals in two games. Things changed in Game 3 when Bobrovsky shined over Adin Hill having his first game with a .900+ save percentage, as the game was won in overtime by the Panthers and Connor Verhaeghe gave the franchise their first SCF game win ever. Meanwhile, the Panthers fought hard in the final half of Game 4 but Adin Hill made a last-second save with his foot on an empty net powerplay, and the series became 3-1 going back to Vegas.

Going back to Las Vegas it already seemed like the Golden Knights were just the better team, but even with the Panthers not having Tkachuk on the ice the home team wasn’t showing no signs of letting up with the cup in the building. Game 5 was where the l1-year veteran who was with the team since nearly the beginning scored a hat trick while six other players scored a goal on top of that for Vegas. In a dominating 9-3 win the Florida Panthers’ Cinderella run came to an end and exceeding all expectations of getting knocked out of the playoffs time and time again was a championship win for Sin City.

- Stanley Cup Playoffs review

From what was a crazy first round to a dominant championship win for the Vegas Golden

Knights, these playoffs have a lot that will be remembered from it which mainly are topped by

the Florida Panthers slaying the regular season giants in the Boston Bruins and Toronto

FINALLY making it past the first round. Although Toronto got the gentleman sweep from the

Panthers and many questions going forward on their team it’s about time they made it past the first round. In what seemed to be pure chaos from the start with all of that and Seattle even making it to the second round in their second year as a franchise, the rest of the playoffs failed to live up to expectations with many dominant series wins. The Stanley Cup Finals was where every neutral fan was hoping for at least six games from the giants of the Western Conference and the underdogs from the Eastern Conference, but the Panthers just had too many injuries against a team with enough depth to cover injuries of their own and unfortunately couldn’t get through more than five games in the end. Injuries shouldn’t diminish the reign of terror Vegas brought to the playoffs and they deservedly are the champions after the amount of letdowns they went through since the last time they made the Stanley Cup Finals.

- Reviewing my SCF Predictions

For the most part a lot of what I thought would happen for the Golden Knights happened in this series. Adin Hill shined brighter than the neon all around Las Vegas coming up with a

game-winning save in Game 4 to nearly put the dagger in the series. Jonathan Marchessault was spectacular all playoffs and he started off the first two games exactly where he finished from going through the Western Conference ending the tournament as the leading goal scorer and winning the Conn Smythe trophy which I felt had to happen beforehand for Vegas to win this series. The only part I didn’t really see coming was how dominant Vegas would look for the most part of this series and win easily in five games, especially after how good the Panthers looked against Carolina and the rest of their run before that. Vegas played very well as a team in all four series they were in and as the Golden Knights bask in their glory as being the top team in the present, the Florida Panthers have a lot to look forward to and get back to this point with a seemingly bright future ahead of them.