In Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final on Tuesday, the Vegas Golden Knights defeated the Florida Panthers 9-3 to win their organization’s first championship.
First half goals from Mark Stone and Nicholas Hague gave Vegas a quick 2-0 lead.
The Panthers had a chance after Aaron Ekblad’s goal at 2:15 into the second period, but the Golden Knights quickly put the game out of their reach. Stone and Michael Amadeo added to the lead to finish off the middle segment after Alec Martinez and Riley Smith clocked 1:45 one after the other.
Stone’s empty-netting goal in the third period gave him a hat-trick, the first in a Stanley Cup-winning game in over a century and the first in a Stanley Cup Final since Peter Forsberg in 1996.
Vegas won easily thanks to a 30-point shutout from the network’s rookie star Adin Hill.
“I thought we earned it every step of the way,” Golden Knights head coach Bruce Cassidy told Sportsnet. “The series we won, I thought we played as a better team, and that’s good for us.”
“(Vegas) earned it,” Panthers president Paul Morris said, according to The Athletic’s Michael Russo. “They were amazing, and we didn’t have an answer for that.”
The Conn Smythe Trophy for postseason MVP went to Jonathan Marchessault, one of the original members of the Golden Knights. In 22 postseason games, he scored 13 goals and 25 points.
The previous record of eight goals, held by the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1991 and the Edmonton Oilers in 1985, has been surpassed by the Golden Knights’ nine goals, the most ever in a Stanley Cup win.
Senior Florida forward Matthew Tkachuk was injured on Tuesday and unable to play.
The only other team to have four players reach the ten-goal plateau in the postseason was the Oilers in 1985, 1988, and 1990.
With this victory, Martinez, Phil Kessel, and Jonathan Quick each won their third Stanley Cup. Only Martinez of the group participated in the championship game this year.
Vegas joined the NHL as an expansion team in 2017-18. The first Golden Knights had a magical run to the Stanley Cup Final before losing to the Washington Capitals in five games.
It is the first for a men’s professional team in Las Vegas to win the title. In 2022, the Las Vegas Aces win the WNBA Championship.
Despite the team’s seven-year existence in the WHA before joining the league in 1979, the Golden Knights are also the first organization to win a Stanley Cup in the club’s first six seasons since the 1984 Oilers.
“Qualifiers in three, Cup in six,” said team owner Bill Foley in 2016. “No excuses. That’s the norm. I take it very patiently.”
Long live Las Vegas.