27
votes
The Vegas Golden Knights are the 2023 Stanley Cup Champions!
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- Title
- Golden Knights crush Panthers in Game 5 to win first Stanley Cup in team history
- Published
- Jun 14 2023
- Word count
- 335 words
NINE TO THREE?!?!
I had to stop watching after the second period because I was just gutted for the Panthers. As a Stars fan that got absolutely smashed by Vegas in our last game with them, honestly expected them to handily take this thing.
And this is amazing for Stone. Getting a hat trick while leading your team to a franchise first cup win? Chef's kiss.
Yeah, I was rooting for the Kings so after Calgary took us out I had to cheer for the knights.
That game was absolutely insane. Also, the curse continues. Every team to knock Toronto out of the playoffs since 2019 has made it to the Stanley Cup Finals, and then lost in the finals.
2019: Bruins beat the leafs in the first round, lost in the finals
2020: Leafs didn’t make the playoffs
2021: Habs beat the leafs in the first round, lost in the finals
2022: Lightning beat the leafs in the first round, lost in the finals
2023: Florida beat the leafs in the second round, lost in the finals
That's actually quite a crazy statistic
As a Canes fan, I'm kinda happy to see Florida get crushed here. But also realize that even if we had beat Florida, we probably would've also been crushed by Vegas.
Too bad, I rather liked the Panthers trajectory to the final, and I like some of their players (e.g. Tkachuk). WP to Vegas though, I felt they were the better team throughout the series.
I'm a little surprised that the Panthers' longer rest before the series start didn't seem to matter... was the Vegas path just easier overall, or was there something I missed?
Also... first comment - hello :wave:
The Panthers definitely had the harder road to the finals, having to take out three of the top 4 teams in the east, including Boston, who just had the best regular season record of all time.
Having more time to rest can be a double-edged sword. Sure, you get some time to recover, but a lot of Panthers were playing with the kinds of injuries that don't clear up after a few days on the couch. The extra time off the ice can also make an that you're a little off your peak when you get back to it.
SMH, Vegas fans don't even know they're supposed to boo Bettmann yet.
Glad they won. This is great for the game, and bad for Sam Bennett.
Marchessault wins the Conn Smythe.
13G 12A 25pts in 22 games.
What do people think of Marchy as playoff MVP?
Deserved? Should it have been Eichel? Stone?
100% Marchessault deserved the Conn Smythe. He was absolutely clutch for Vegas throughout the entire playoffs.
It's hard to argue with his goals.
But at the same time, he was never "the guy". Great shot, but he was always executing plays he didn't create. That's still great of course, but I'd probably go:
1A Stone
1B Hill
3 Eichel
4 Marchessault
There's no bad choice though.
Really reflects the “by committee” makeup of Vegas that there are 3 or 4 equally good options for MVP. That’s been their MO since year 1 and it’s amazing the success they’ve had with it, similar to STL in 2019.
It’s interesting that it took the addition of a lower level superstar in Eichel to push them over the top, though.
I was thinking about that last night.
Vegas crushed Florida and Winnipeg and would have done so without Eichel in the lineup. And both Edmonton and Dallas had young goalies who had a terrible series.
Vegas really does do it by committee, and a lot of top six forwards are going to get overpaid as a result, but I think they would have won without Eichel. That's what separates Stone and Hill for me, they were indispensable.
I’m eager to see the PHWA voter breakdown this year after last year’s unanimous Conn Smythe for Cale Makar.
I imagine this one’s going to be real close.
For sure. Both Marek and Friedman had said Eichel was their pick, though I don't think Marek actually had a vote.
Somehow I missed that the voting breakdown for the Conn Smythe was revealed a couple months ago:
PHWA Ballots: Conn Smythe.
Interestingly it was not all that close:
Twitter
Crazy how much these guys sacrifice for a shot at the Cup--the captains especially.
Landeskog (2022 SC Win), Weber (2021 SC Loss), Price (2021 SC Loss--not a captain but might as well have been), and now Stone have all basically been broken by runs at the cup. At least Stone and Landeskog won--the Habs' run to the SCF ended Weber and Price's careers and totally wiped out the team, ultimately without anything to show for it.
Hopefully Stone didn't push himself too far this playoffs and he's able to function on and off ice going forward. Guy is only 31.