For the second time in their very short history, the Vegas Golden Knights are going to the Stanley Cup final.
Bruce Cassidy’s men curtly sent the Stars on vacation, beating them 6-0 Monday at the American Airlines Center in Dallas. Vegas thus wins the Western final 4-2.
The Knights meet the Florida Panthers in the Finals, starting Saturday. Both teams will be aiming for a first Stanley Cup, on their second visit to the Finals. The difference being that the former emerged under current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the latter during the short-lived reign of Kim Campbell.
For this return to the final, the Knights have been propelled by those who participated in the unexpected course of the first spring, that of 2018. William Carrier opened the scoring, his Swedish namesake Karlsson scored twice, Jonathan Marchessault also hit the target, while Shea Theodore, even cleared, was all attacks.
Vegas has six survivors who were there full-time in their inaugural season (Reilly Smith and Brayden McNabb are the other two), a stability rarely seen in the NHL. They’ve certainly added superior talent to those six since – namely Mark Stone, Jack Eichel and Alex Pietrangelo – but the unfolding of that decisive victory underlined in broad strokes the importance of the original parts.
This nucleus also has a whole track record, in the absence of a championship ring. In addition to its two appearances in the final, Vegas stopped in the conference final on two other occasions. We guess that somewhere in Seattle, after a promising spring, a team owner wants to get as much bang for his buck as Bill Foley.
More details to come.