With 14 series matchups completed, there's one more round of NHL playoff hockey to go. Adam Proteau gives his predictions for the Stanley Cup final.
The 2022-23 Stanley Cup final is set to begin Saturday in Las Vegas, where the host Golden Knights will take on the Florida Panthers. Both teams had a rough go of it at some point in the regular season, but they peaked at precisely the right time and knocked out highly skilled opponents on their way to the final.
(As for our earlier predictions: after we went 6-6 in the first two rounds, our predictions for the Conference finals were not ideal, as we had the Dallas Stars and Carolina Hurricanes making the Cup final. But that won’t stop us from trying to make an educated guess again for the Panthers/Golden Knights series.
Why the Golden Knights could win: Heading into the NHL all-star break at the beginning of February, the Golden Knights were a rather mediocre 29-18-4. They’d just dropped eight of their past 10 games, including six of their eight defeats in regulation time. But something changed by the time they returned to action on Feb. 7, as Vegas pulled off five consecutive wins and went on to post a 22-4-5 record the rest of the season. In that span, they lost more than one game in a row just two times, and in both cases, the losing skid never exceeded two games in a row.
In short, the Golden Knights have been firing on all pistons for nearly four months now, and there’s no good reason why that trend can’t continue. It’s true they had an easier road to get to the Cup final than Florida did, but you also have to give them credit for being a fast, crisp unit that has consistently lit up the opposition.
Why the Panthers could win: Hey, we’re going to come by it honestly and point out we haven’t liked Florida to win any of its first three rounds, so we aren’t picking them (spoiler alert) to win the Cup final. But that’s not to say we couldn’t see it happening for the Panthers. Of course we could.
They’ve been a physical, speedy, well-balanced playoff team – each of their top two forward lines have generated 38 points in 16 post-season games – and coach Paul Maurice has kept their forecheck fierce and their sense of opportunism in the offensive zone alive and well.
Florida starting goalie Sergei Bobrovsky has helped keep the Panthers in games this post-season, and if Florida has any hope of beating back Vegas’ waves of puck possession in the offensive zone, they’re going to need Bobrovsky to continue being a difference-maker.
Matthew Tkachuk also needs to be a positive influence on the series to give the Panthers the edge they need to succeed. If they get above-average output from a few key areas, they can be the last team standing, holding the first Cup in franchise history.
Who is going to win: Vegas
The Golden Knights and Panthers have been playing playoff-quality hockey for months now.
The Panthers needed to be above average for most of the final three months of the season just to get to the playoffs. For Vegas, it was about rising through the crowd in the Pacific Division and landing home-ice advantage in the playoffs. Now that we’re down to the final series of the season, it’s easy to see the Golden Knights and Panthers emptying their tanks in desperation to win four of the next seven games.
In the end, we went with Vegas because we like their defense corps more than Florida’s and because Bruce Cassidy has proven to be an ideal fit behind the Golden Knights’ bench. Vegas plays all six of its best defensemen at least 18:25 per game. While they don’t have a legitimate Norris Trophy candidate, the Golden Knights’ group of blueliners is big – five of their top six D-men are at least 6-foot-2 – and cohesive in their own zone. Cassidy can feel comfortable giving any one of his defensemen some important responsibility, and they normally do very well in response to that challenge.
We doubt either team has the overarching dominance to sweep the other side in this series, and we can envision the matchup going at least six games before a victor is declared. But we think Vegas starter Adin Hill is going to be the best goalie in the series and, ultimately, be responsible for putting away the Panthers before a seventh-and-deciding game.
Pick: Golden Knights in six games