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Golden Knights thrash Panthers 9-3 in Game 5 to clinch first Stanley Cup in franchise history

Posted on by Jillian Wagner

The Vegas Golden Knights held a 3-1 series edge over the Florida Panthers coming into a critical Game 5 Tuesday night at T-Mobile Arena. The Golden Knights delivered a statement performance as they demolished the Panthers in a 9-3 rout to clinch the first Stanley Cup in franchise history.

Mark Stone scored a hat trick, Jack Eichel and Shea Theodore recorded three assists each, every member of the Misfit Line recorded at least a point and fifteen different members of the Golden Knights found the scoresheet in an all-around team effort for the ages.

Jonathan Marchessault was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as MVP of the playoffs; he finished second in scoring with 25 points and tied for first in goals with 13.

Adin Hill delivered one last tremendous performance, turning aside 31 of 34 shots for a .912 save percentage to backstop the Golden Knights to their first championship.

First period

The Panthers got off to a strong start, generating several chances early in the game. However, Hill was stellar, shutting down all eight shots he faced in the opening 20 minutes, one of which came on an early breakaway.

Hill’s play gave Vegas time to settle in and find its rhythm.

The Golden Knights were the first on the board for the third time in five games in this series.

Stone opened the scoring, collecting a giveaway just inside the Vegas blue line and skating down the ice on a 2-on-1. He headed straight towards the crease, delayed and waited for Sergei Bobrovsky to go down before lifting the puck into the top-right corner to give Vegas a 1-0 lead.

It was Vegas’ first shorthanded goal of the postseason.

The Golden Knights doubled that lead less than two minutes later.

Eichel started the play, using a curl-and-drag to get around Brandon Montour before firing a backhand shot at Bobrovsky, which led to a scramble in the crease. Nicolas Hague came swooping in and shoved the puck into the net to make it 2-0 at 13:41.

With the secondary assist on the play, Marchessault extended his point streak to 10 games; he finished the series with eight points in five games.

Vegas got off to a slow start, but by the end of the frame, the Golden Knights were winning every race and every battle, fighting for every inch on the ice.

Second period

To the Panthers’ credit, Florida came out fighting at the start of the second period and pulled within one just 2:15 into the middle frame.

An Aaron Ekblad floater from the point beat Hill over the shoulder; Hill never saw the shot due to a screen by Ryan Lomberg.

For the second period in a row, the Panthers were the better team early, but the momentum shifted dramatically midway through the frame, and it never shifted back.

The Golden Knights completely took over the game, series and season with the second period of all second periods.

Vegas scored four unanswered goals in the span of 9:30, with three of them coming in less than seven minutes.

An extended shift kept Florida hemmed in its end and led to multiple scoring chances for the Golden Knights. Eventually, the puck made its way onto Alec Martinez’s stick in the slot. Martinez beat Bobrovsky cleanly, firing a top-shelf laser to the far-side corner to restore Vegas’ two-goal lead at 10:28.

Martinez now has more goals in the Stanley Cup Final than any other active defenseman.

The Golden Knights seized the moment and found another gear. Less than two minutes later, three Original Misfits teamed up to blow the roof off T-Mobile Arena.

William Karlsson’s between-the-legs pass set up Reilly Smith’s one-timer, which beat Bobrovsky to the far post to make it a 4-1 game at 12:13 of the second.

That proved to be the Cup-clinching goal, but the Golden Knights weren’t finished.

It took a little over five minutes, but Vegas further extended its lead when Stone scored his second of the game. His one-timer got through the exhausted Bobrovsky to give the Golden Knights a commanding four-goal lead at 17:15.

The Golden Knights scored the true dagger with just two seconds left on the clock, as Michael Amadio deflected a puck in front and then shoved it under Bobrovsky, who was down in the crease.

Vegas took a 6-1 lead into intermission, just 20 minutes away from achieving the ultimate goal.

Third period

Hill continued to come up with spectacular saves in the third period as the Golden Knights fought to hold on to their sizeable lead and close out the championship.

Perhaps his most remarkable stop was a glove save on Anthony Duclair at the side of the net.

Ivan Barbashev netted his seventh of the playoffs 8:22 into the third period to give Vegas a 7-1 lead, but the Panthers responded with a Sam Reinhart tally just 25 seconds later.

The Panthers scored the next goal just under three minutes after that, making it a 7-3 game at 11:39 of the third.

Panthers coach Paul Maurice pulled Bobrovsky with over six minutes to go, leading to three Stone attempts on the empty net. The first hit the post, the second missed wide but the third was just right. Stone hit the empty cage for his third goal of the game and 11th of the postseason to make it 8-3 at 14:06.

It was the first hat trick in the Stanley Cup Final since Peter Forsberg scored three goals in 1996 against, ironically, the Florida Panthers.

The goal extinguished any hope the Panthers may have had of mounting a comeback.

With 62 seconds left in the third, Nicolas Roy found the back of the net to put a final stamp on the Golden Knights’ 16th win of the playoffs. Both Theodore and Brayden McNabb assisted on the last goal of the season to secure the 9-3 win.

The Golden Knights clinched the first Stanley Cup in franchise history in front of a record-setting crowd of 19,058, the most fans to attend a Golden Knights game in history.

It was a fitting atmosphere for the type of game Vegas played.

It began with Bruce Cassidy’s decision to put five Original Misfits on the ice to start the game, including the Misfit Line as well as the McNabb and Theodore pairing.

“[Cassidy] told us when he announced the lineups,” Karlsson said. “We were all kind of buzzing in there. It was a cool feeling; it’s special.”

As had been the case in Vegas’ three previous elimination games, the Golden Knights were surgical in their execution in Game 5.

The Panthers had a few waves of pressure but were overwhelmed for most of the night by the Vegas attack.

The Golden Knights were relentless and played with the same killer instinct that helped them advance through each round of the playoffs.

They withstood Florida’s initial push – in large part thanks to Hill – and then capitalized on their chances, including a shorthanded odd-man rush and a scramble in the crease.

Vegas gave up a goal in the second period to make it a 2-1 hockey game, but it was right back to business for the Golden Knights, who kept their foot on the gas and responded with four unanswered goals.

Martinez’s goal was the finishing touch on an epic multi-line shift that turned the tide of the game.

With a five-goal lead, the Golden Knights sat back a bit in the third, but they still outscored the Panthers. In the end, the Golden Knights won all three periods: 2-0 in the first, 4-1 in the second and 3-2 in the third.

The Golden Knights were committed to winning, and it’s something the team found ways to do all season long.

In Game 5, the Golden Knights got offense from 15 different players in the lineup, and all four lines scored at least a goal.

Vegas finished the series 14-for-14 on the penalty kill, including 1-for-1 in Game 5. The zone exits were a bit troublesome at times, but the team rallied with some outstanding shifts and put pucks behind Bobrovsky. The Golden Knights ran away with it in the second period.

Hill had a special performance. He gave up three goals, but he made a number of massive saves, including an especially timely one right before Stone opened the scoring.

This game could have gone very differently if not for the play of Hill, which has been a consistent theme for the Golden Knights this postseason.

Hill finished the playoffs with an 11-4 record, a 2.17 goals-against average, a .932 save percentage and two shutouts. He was magnificent, and the “MVP” chants from the crowd were well-deserved, regardless of who got the actual hardware.

“Congratulations to Vegas; they earned it,” Maurice said at the start of his press conference. “They were outstanding, and we didn’t have an answer.”

Florida was playing shorthanded, with Matthew Tkachuk unable to suit up due to a broken sternum suffered on the Keegan Kolesar hit in Game 3. Maurice revealed the news after the game, saying Tkachuk was one of four players with broken bones; Ekblad played through a myriad of injuries, including a broken foot, torn oblique and dislocated shoulder, and Radko Gudas had a high-ankle sprain.

That’s the price of playoff hockey.

The Golden Knights surely played through ailments, but Vegas finally got a gift from the hockey gods and didn’t suffer any major injuries, other than to Laurent Brossoit. The injury bug that had plagued Vegas for the past two years finally gave it a rest, and that played a role in the Golden Knights’ sensational run.

It paved the way for Vegas to be able to rely on its depth, the team’s greatest asset all season long.

The fact that at least five players were worthy of consideration for the Conn Smythe Trophy demonstrates the team-wide effort that helped Vegas get the job done. Four players finished with 20-plus points and four scored 10-plus goals. But the contributions from up and down the lineup also came on the defensive side of things.

The Golden Knights blocked another 26 shots in Game 5, bringing the series total to 123, including 87 in the last three games alone.

Vegas kept the Panthers to the perimeter once again in Game 5; two of Florida’s three goals were scored on shots from far out with traffic in front. One was a screened shot by Ekblad, the other a deep shot by Bennett that hit Alex Pietrangelo on its way into the net.

But the Golden Knights protected the middle of the ice and protected their net, which helped them pull off a dominant 9-3 win to claim the best trophy in sports.

The six Original Misfits were the first six players to skate with the Cup after Stone; those six players combined for eight points in the Cup-clincher, including the game-winner.

But the captain got things started in Game 5 and led by example the whole night.

“That’s why he’s our captain,” Chandler Stephenson said. “That’s why he is world-class. There’s not much you can say about him that isn’t what a captain is. His emotion, the way he plays, he’s just outstanding. Him leading by example tonight, there’s no surprise there.”

Stone was one of many players to lift Lord Stanley’s Cup for the first time.

“I can’t even describe the feelings in my stomach right now,” Stone said. “It’s everything you can imagine.”

Martinez, now a three-time champion, said, “It’s a pretty special feeling to see some younger guys fulfill a childhood dream. It’s pretty cool.”

One of those younger players living his dream was Hill.

“It’s what you kind of dream of as a kid growing up,” Hill said. “Every year, you watch the whole team skate around last, lifting that above their head. To be able to do this here in Vegas and share this with my family, it’s pretty surreal.”

The Golden Knights reached the Final in 2018; in Game 5 of that series, the Washington Capitals skated around the T-Mobile Arena ice with the Stanley Cup above their heads.

This time, it was Vegas’ turn.

“That was a tough moment, but here we are five years later,” Karlsson said. “We’re the ones hoisting the Cup. Yeah, it was worth the wait.”

Stephenson was part of that Capitals team that defeated Vegas in five games.

“Can’t really believe it,” he said. “Can’t put it into words. There’s so much emotion, so much feeling, but obviously to see the guys that have been here since Day 1 get the opportunity to [win] – and some of the veteran guys – it’s really special.”

Almost a year to the day of being hired by the Golden Knights, Cassidy lifted the Cup for the first time as well.

“It’s hard to put into words,” he said. “It’s just a great feeling. A lot’s happened in the last year for me and my family, but what a way to finish it off.”

What a way, indeed.

Talking Points