Las Vegas (Reuters): Mark Stone scored three goals to help the Vegas Golden Knights capture their first championship with a 9-3 victory against the Florida Panthers in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final on Tuesday night in Las Vegas.
Stone’s performance marked the first hat trick in the finals since Peter Forsberg accomplished the feat for the Colorado Avalanche in 1996.
Reilly Smith had a goal and an assist and Jack Eichel and Shea Theodore each contributed three assists for the Golden Knights, who lifted the Stanley Cup in just their sixth season of existence to become the fastest expansion team in NHL history to claim a title.
Adin Hill made 31 saves for Vegas.
The Knights’ Jonathan Marchessault won the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP. He tallied an assist in Game 5, giving him 12 for the playoffs to go with 13 goals. He tied for the league lead in postseason goals this year and finished one point behind teammate Jack Eichel’s league-leading playoff point total.
Sam Bennett and Sam Reinhart each had a goal and an assist, Aaron Ekblad also scored and Sergei Bobrovsky made 22 saves for Florida, which was outscored 21-7 in the three games in Las Vegas. Stone scored short-handed off a two-on-one breakaway to give the Golden Knights a 1-0 lead at 11:52 of the first period.
Bobrovsky made a save on Eichel’s backhand try and then tried to lay on the puck in the crease, but it was poked out to Nicolas Hague, and Hague shot it into the net for a 2-0 lead at 13:41 of the first.
Ekblad cut it to 2-1 with a wrist shot from just inside the blue line at 2:15 of the second, but the Golden Knights answered with four straight goals before the end of the period.
Alec Martinez scored off the rush to make it 3-1 at 10:28, and Smith put away a between-the-legs pass from William Karlsson for a 4-1 lead at 12:13.
Stone scored his 10th goal of the postseason to extend the lead to 5-1 at 17:15, and Michael Amadio capped the barrage by scoring with two seconds left in the period to make it 6-1.
Ivan Barbashev scored at 8:22 of the third period to make it 7-1. Reinhart scored 25 seconds later to trim Florida’s deficit to 7-2. Bennett gave Florida three goals in regulation for the first time in the series when he scored at 11:39 to make it 7-3.
Stone secured the hat trick when he scored into an empty net with 5:54 left to make it 8-3. Nicolas Roy finished off the scoring with 1:02 left for a 9-3 lead. The Panthers were without leading scorer Matthew Tkachuk, who sat out for the first time this postseason with a broken sternum.
Florida finished 0-for-14 on the power play in the series to become the first team without a power-play goal in the finals since the Detroit Red Wings in 1948. Vegas became the third team in NHL history to score eight goals in a potential-clinching game in the finals, joining the 1985 Edmonton Oilers and 1991 Pittsburgh Penguins.
