Four-goal second period leads the way for a 9-3 victory over Florida Panthers.
The Vegas Golden Knights dominated the Florida Panthers in every aspect of the game as part of a 9-3 victory in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final at T-Mobile Arena.
Mark Stone had a hat trick; Nicolas Hague, Alec Martinez, Reilly Smith, Michael Amadio, Ivan Barbashev and Nicolas Roy also scored. Adin Hill made 32 saves.
"All of us, the Golden Knights, we're all winners," forward Jonathan Marchessault said. "It's definitely the best feeling in the world."
Analysis
The Golden Knights got off to a rocky start, but once the nerves settled, it was relatively smooth sailing.
After Hill made a pair of saves on Anton Lundell and Aleksander Barkov, Stone recovered the puck in the neutral zone, skated to the front of the net, patiently waited for the defenseman to clear and roofed a shot past Sergei Bobrovsky.
"The first goal is huge for us," Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said. "We didn't start great. You could see a little bit of nerves and Florida was on us. What a great save from Hill and it led to a short-handed goal. It kind of let us breathe a little bit."
Hague made it 2-0 with a greasy goal, crashing the net and scoring.
Things got a little sketchy when Aaron Ekblad scored with a shot from the point, giving Florida a little life.
It was rather a last gasp, as the Golden Knights scored the next five goals to put the game out of reach.
The game put on display the great team depth that Vegas owned all year long. Fifteen of the 18 Golden Knights skaters tallied at least a point.
Florida, who was playing with Matthew Tkachuk, couldn’t sustain any offensive zone time and couldn’t really stop the Golden Knights from spending time in their offensive zone.
While there were pockets of sloppy Golden Knights play, it was still one of the Golden Knights better performances of the postseason. It wasn’t their best game, but it was certainly good enough to raise the cup.
Shining Knight of the Game
Stone was easily the Golden Knights’ best player. He scored the first goal – a shorthande goal. He added a one-timer from Jack Eichel and closed out the hat trick with an empty-net goal
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