Long live Las Vegas! Barely six years after their integration into the North American Championship (NHL), the Golden Knights hit the jackpot, winning their first Stanley Cup on Tuesday at the expense of the Florida Panthers, beaten 4-1 in the final. The Nevada team was crowned thanks to its crushing victory (9-3) in the decisive fifth game of a series which it will have dominated quite largely.
Created in 2017, it is the fastest of the expansion franchises to reach this Holy Grail. The precocity record previously belonged to the Philadelphia Flyers, after only seven seasons in the NHL. After having made the break (3-2) during the previous meeting at Sunrise in Florida, the Golden Knights did not miss the opportunity to finish the job in front of their supporters, by offering them a fireworks display, thanks in particular to to a hat-trick from Mark Stone and three assists from Jack Eichel, two of their strong men during these play-offs. They started in the best possible way in the first half, with two goals in less than two minutes, scored by Stone first, who left alone on the counterattack, and Nicolas Hague at the conclusion of a big mess in front of opposing cages.
The Panthers were only deceived at the start of the second period, when Aaron Ekblad placed a superb shot in the top corner to reduce the score. Whereupon Vegas put its foot back on the accelerator by scoring four times in the last ten minutes. First by Alec Martinez, who also cleared the right bracket of Florida goals after a raise from his own camp, then by Reilly Smith and Mark Stone, before Michael Amadio completed this one-sided sequence .
In the final period, Ivan Barbashev scored his team’s seventh, after an assist from Jack Eichel, his 20th in 22 play-off matches. By adding his six goals scored, the American climbed to the top of the scoring charts with 26 units. For the honor, the Panthers scored twice by his two Sams, Reinhart and Bennett, but Stone completed his “hat-trick” for the Golden Knights by sending the puck into the goal abandoned by the Floridian goalkeeper, before in the last moments, Nicolas Roy does not weigh down the bill a little more.
For Vegas, this second coronation opportunity, after failing in 2018 against Washington, in his first season in the NHL, will have been the right one. Florida, on the other hand, fails a second time on the last step, after falling against Colorado in 1996.
