Vegas Golden Knights captain Mark Stone scored a hat trick to lead his team to a Game 5 win and Stanley Cup championship. Who were the two others to do the same more than a century ago?

Mark Stone’s leadership in arguably the biggest game of his life led to something that hasn’t happened in a long time.

As Stone hit the empty net in the last game of the 2023 Stanley Cup playoffs, he became the first NHL player to score a hat trick in the final series since Peter Forsberg did so for the Colorado Avalanche in Game 2 of the 1995-96 final. Stone was four years old at the time. The Avalanche beat the – guess who – Florida Panthers 8-1 in that match and went on to win the Stanley Cup in four games. The 2022-23 Panthers got two more goals against the Golden Knights in Tuesday’s game and one more win in the series, but Vegas sealed the deal with a 9-3 victory.

So, who does Stone join as the only NHL players to record a hat trick in their team’s Cup-clinching win?

For that, we must flash back 103 years to the first time it happened.

Jack Darragh, Ottawa Senators, 1920

Jack Darragh was born in Ottawa in 1890 and played all six seasons of his Hall of Fame NHL career with the original Senators. He averaged at least a point per game in his first four seasons, including his third year – the 1919-20 campaign. That season, he recorded a career-high 23 goals and 37 points in 23 games.

The Senators were the NHL representatives in the best-of-five Stanley Cup final against the winners of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association, the Seattle Metropolitans. The Senators won Games 1 and 2 but blew their series lead as Seattle forced a fifth-and-deciding outing on April 1, 1920.

Seattle and Ottawa traded goals in the first period, and the score held at 1-1 heading into the third period. Then, the hometown hero got on the scoresheet. Darragh scored his third, fourth and fifth goals of the series as the Senators notched five markers in the final frame. The Senators won their first Cup as an NHL team that year, and they won another two with Darragh in 1921 and 1923. But what about that year in between?

Babe Dye, Toronto St. Pat's, 1922

Babe Dye was a forward and goal-scoring machine for the Toronto St. Pat's. He tied Punch Broadbent of the original Senators for the league lead in goals in the 1921-22 regular season, with 31 in 24 games each. The two teams faced off in the NHL championship series, with Toronto winning and taking on the PCHA’s Vancouver Millionaires in another best-of-five series for the Stanley Cup. It, too, went all the way to a fifth game.

Three minutes into the deciding game against the Millionaires, Dye opened the scoring. A minute and 20 seconds later, he made it 2-0 Toronto. His teammate, Corb Denneny, got in the action in the second period to make it 3-0, but Dye completed the hat trick with his 10th goal of the playoffs in the third period. Just for kicks, he scored a fourth seven minutes afterward in an eventual 5-1 victory for the St. Pat's.

That was Dye’s one and only Stanley Cup victory. His nine goals in the final tied Cyclone Taylor (1917-18) and Frank Foyston (1918-19) for the most in the last series. Dye scored 203 goals and 252 points in 272 career NHL regular-season games. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1970, eight years after his death.