Stanley Cup Final News June 3, 2023 – “JUST GET IN”: GOLDEN KNIGHTS, PANTHERS BLAZE DIFFERENT PATHS TO FINAL

While the Golden Knights and Panthers share a few commonalities – both in the Final for the second time, both in search of their first Stanley Cup and both led in scoring by U.S.-born stars who are in their first season with the club – they reached the championship series via vastly different trajectories.

• Vegas spent 87% of the season as the first-place team in the Pacific Division, including 72% as the top team in the Western Conference and 11 days as the No. 1 team in the entire NHL. They were the first Western Conference club to secure a playoff berth (March 30) and spent all but two of the final 45 days of the season as the No. 1-ranked team in the West. After winning their season opener on a go-ahead goal by Mark Stone with 26 seconds remaining in regulation – scored against now-teammate Jonathan Quick – the Golden Knights maintained a top-three spot in the Pacific for the rest of the season en route to their third division crown and first conference title.
• Florida sat outside the top 20 in the overall NHL standings for nearly as many days as it held a playoff spot in 2022-23 (45 outside top 20, 54 in playoff spot) and slipped as low as 24th in the League standings (during the first five days of January). They sat as many as nine points outside the playoff picture – on Dec. 28, with a record of 15-16-4 (34 points) – but a late surge helped them become the second-last Eastern Conference club to secure a playoff spot. The Panthers, who won the Presidents’ Trophy last season, are the only team in the NHL’s expansion era (since 1967-68) to reach the Final after spending less than 30% of the season in a playoff spot.

FLORIDA SEEKS FIRST-EVER WIN IN BOTH LAS VEGAS AND STANLEY CUP FINAL

Vegas enters Game 1 of its second Stanley Cup Final with a perfect home record against Florida, winning all five head-to-head contests at T-Mobile Arena since 2017-18. The Panthers, meanwhile, take a five-game overall winning streak into their first Final game in 27 years – along with an eight-game road winning streak that stands as the second longest in Stanley Cup Playoffs history. The only other team without a regular-season win in Las Vegas is Washington, though the Capitals do have two victories in Sin City, including a Stanley Cup-clinching win claimed June 7, 2018.

• Vegas goaltender Adin Hill will head into his Stanley Cup Final debut – and his 12th career playoff game – with an active shutout streak of 67:58 dating to the third period Game 5 of the Western Conference Final. A period of perfect play would catapult him into the top eight longest stretches in franchise playoff history.
• While Vegas has gone an entire game without allowing a goal, Florida has gone all of five seconds of game time without one following the late series-clinching tally by Matthew Tkachuk in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Final 10 days ago. Tkachuk, who has factored on four straight winning goals and eight overall this postseason (4-4—8), will look to help the Panthers pick up where they left off as they search for their first-ever victory in the Stanley Cup Final.

A QUICK LOOK BACK AS WE LOOK AHEAD TO GAME 1

The only Stanley Cup Final victory between these two franchises came in a Game 1 played at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas five years ago. Check out the June 3 edition of #NHLStats: Live Updates for detailed Game 1 trends in the Stanley Cup Playoffs and Final.

• On May 28, 2018, a back-and-forth opener to the Stanley Cup Final saw the Golden Knights and Capitals trade the lead four times with “Mr. TNT” Ryan Reaves and teammate Tomas Nosek scoring the final three goals of the contest to rally Vegas to victory. It was the first game in Stanley Cup Final history with four lead changes (a feat that has not since been repeated in the round). The Golden Knights improved to 7-1 at T-Mobile Arena in the 2018 Playoffs with that victory, outscoring opponents 31-16 at the time – they now top the NHL with a 6-3 home record (.667 W%) in the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
• On June 4, 1996, three days after winning Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Final against Mario Lemieux and the Penguins, the Panthers descended on McNichols Sports Arena in Denver for their first-ever Stanley Cup Final game. Facing a top-four team from the NHL regular-season standings for the third consecutive series, Florida opened the scoring with a goal by Tom Fitzgerald at 16:51 of the first period but surrendered three tallies in a span of 3:49 during the middle frame. Patrick Roy (25 saves) shut the door the rest of the way – and for the rest of the series, allowing only four goals in 284:31 of total game time – as Colorado came out victorious in what was then the second Stanley Cup Final in the NHL’s modern era (1943-44) to feature two franchises looking for their first championship.