Stanley Cup Final: Vegas Golden Knights win young franchise’s first NHL title over Florida Panthers

CNN
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The Vegas Golden Knights, in just their sixth NHL season, defeated the Florida Panthers 9-3 Tuesday night in Las Vegas to win the franchise’s first Stanley Cup in five games.

The championship is the second major title in two years for the city of Las Vegas. In 2022, the WNBA’s Las Vegas Aces won the league crown with a 3-1 series win over the Connecticut Sun.

Vegas captain Mark Stone had a goal in each period to lead the Golden Knights, who joined the NHL before the 2017-2018 season.

Vegas led 2-0 at the first intermission, then the rout commenced in the second period as the newly crowned champs scored four times and took a 6-1 lead into the final 20 minutes.

Golden Knights goalie Adin Hill let in two goals but continued to thwart the Panthers with several fine saves in the third.

Stone put the Golden Knights up 1-0 with a short-handed goal with 8:08 left in the first period. Less than two minutes later, the puck got under Florida goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky, and Vegas’ Nicolas Hague snapped it into the net for a 2-0 lead.

Early in the second period the Panthers cut the deficit to one when Aaron Ekblad scored on an assist from Nick Cousins. Ekblad’s second goal of the playoffs made it 2-1 with 17:45 remaining in the second.

But Alec Martinez reestablished a two-goal lead for the Golden Knights with a wrist shot that found the top shelf over Bobrovsky’s right shoulder. With 9:32 left in the period, it was 3-1 Golden Knights.

Vegas extended the lead to three when Reilly Smith scored on a nifty pass from William Karlsson to his wide-open teammate. The score was 4-1 Vegas with 7:47 left in the second period.

The fifth goal for Vegas came when Stone fired in his second on a smart cross-ice pass from Brett Howden with 2:45 remaining before the intermission.

Disaster struck for the Panthers when – with just seconds left in the period – Florida failed to get the puck out of the defensive zone and Smith picked it up at the blue line. He fed Michael Amadio in front of the net and his rebound shot trickled under Bobrovsky’s leg.

In the third period, Ivan Barbashev of the Golden Knights made it 7-1 before Florida’s Sam Reinhart and Sam Bennett scored consolation goals.

Stone capped his hattrick with an empty net goal as Florida played with six skaters to make it 8-3. Then with just over a minute left in the season, Nicolas Roy made the final score 9-3.

This story is developing and will be updated.