Golden Knights win Stanley Cup with Game 5 victory against Panthers

LAS VEGAS -- Vegas, baby, Vegas.

The Vegas Golden Knights won the Stanley Cup for the first time, defeating the Florida Panthers 9-3 in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final at T-Mobile Arena on Tuesday.

Vegas won the Cup in its sixth season, becoming the second-fastest team to a championship in the expansion era (since 1967-68) behind the Edmonton Oilers (five, 1983-84).

"All of us, the Golden Knights, we're all winners," said forward Jonathan Marchessault, who was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. "It's definitely the best feeling in the world."

Mark Stone scored a hat trick, Jack Eichel and Shea Theodore each had three assists, and Reilly Smith had a goal and an assist for Vegas. Adin Hill made 32 saves.

The Golden Knights had seven goal-scorers and 15 players with at least one point.

"Depth all year," Vegas defenseman Alex Pietrangelo said. "We just used our depth to overwhelm people."

Sam Reinhart and Sam Bennett each had a goal and an assist, and Sergei Bobrovsky made 23 saves for the Panthers.

"Appropriate congratulations to Vegas, they earned it," Florida coach Paul Maurice said. "They were outstanding. We didn't have an answer for them."

The Panthers played without forward Matthew Tkachuk, their leading scorer in the playoffs (24 points; 11 goals, 13 assists), who broke his sternum in Game 3 but played through the injury in Game 4.

Maurice credited Tkachuk with being a smart enough player to make an impact in Game 4, but the pain was too great for him to keep going.

"He didn't dress himself for the game," Maurice said. "Somebody helped him get his gear on. Somebody tied his skates. Somebody put his sweater on for him. But the next day when he came in he was in significant pain, so it wasn't really a question of whether he'd be able to play or not. The idea would be if we could let it calm, we might be able to get him to Game 7."

The Golden Knights made sure that wasn't going to be an option.

Stone got them started offensively by making it 1-0 with a short-handed goal off a 2-on-1 at 11:52 of the first period.

Hill gave the Golden Knights a chance to score first with a left-pad save on Anton Lundell, who was in alone on him, at 2:24, and a save on Aleksander Barkov with his left skate 18 seconds before Stone's goal.

"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."

Nicolas Hague gave Vegas a 2-0 lead at 13:41. He came in from the blue line, got to a loose puck in front of Bobrovsky and put it in.

Marchessault had an assist on Hague's goal to extend his Golden Knights playoff-record point streak to 10 games (15 points; eight goals, seven assists). He finished the playoffs with 25 points (13 goals, 12 assists), second behind Eichel (26 points; six goals, 20 assists).

"I remember Game 4 [in Florida] we wanted to bring it back home and get a chance to win it at home," Marchessault said. "And we did. Our team delivered tonight. We were dominating the whole game. I was just so proud to do it in front of our fans. It's a moment I'll never forget."

Aaron Ekblad cut it to 2-1 at 2:15 of the second period with a shot through traffic from the right point that beat Hill over his left shoulder.

But the Golden Knights scored four goals in the last 9:32 of the second period to put the game out of reach.

"Maybe we ran out of steam there a bit," Ekblad said.

Alec Martinez made it 3-1 at 10:28 from the right face-off circle off a drop pass from Eichel.

It was nine years ago to the day that Martinez scored the double-overtime Cup-winning goal for the Los Angeles Kings in Game 5 against the New York Rangers in the 2014 Stanley Cup Final.

"Alec Martinez only scores in Stanley Cup Finals, apparently," Cassidy said. "And what a timely goal that is."

Smith scored 1:45 later to make it 4-1 at 12:13, beating Bobrovsky from the right side after William Karlsson set him up with a no-look, backhanded, between-the-legs pass in the slot.

"When we got the third and fourth goal, that was pretty nuts," Hill said. "It was pretty surreal. Our team showed that ability all year with our depth, the ability to take over a game. It doesn't matter what line is out there, we can just dominate shifts like that. We did it back to back and scored on both. That changed the whole course of the game right there."

Stone's second of the game made it 5-1 at 17:15. Chandler Stephenson brought the puck into the zone on the right side and dropped it to Brett Howden, who moved it across to Stone in the left circle. His shot got through Bobrovsky.

Michael Amadio made it 6-1 at 19:58 by scoring from the slot on his own rebound.

"We felt good about ourselves going into the third period, obviously," Eichel said. "We had a big lead. We thought we did a good job in the second. You're trying to hold all your emotions together. You need to finish the game."

Ivan Barbashev extended the lead to 7-1 at 8:22 of the third. Twenty-five seconds later Reinhart cut it to 7-2 at 8:47, and Bennett made it 7-3 at 11:39 with a shot off Pietrangelo's stick.

Stone finished his hat trick with an unassisted empty-net goal from deep in the other end to make it 8-3 at 14:06.

Then Nicolas Roy capped it at 18:58 for the 9-3 final.

"It's the best feeling in the world to be able to do this," Eichel said. "Lifelong dream."

NOTES: Forward Grigori Denisenko took Tkachuk's place in the lineup and made his playoff debut. He was minus-3 in 5:57 of ice time. … Stone had at least one point in each Cup Final game, finishing with nine points (five goals, four assists). He's the first captain with nine or more points in a Cup Final since Joe Sakic had nine (four goals, five assists) with the Colorado Avalanche in 2001. … Eichel's 26 points are the third-most by a player in his first NHL postseason. Mark Recchi had 34 (10 goals, 24 assists) for the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1991, and Eric Staal had 28 (nine goals, 19 assists) for the Carolina Hurricanes in 2006.