Stanley Cup Final blog: Zach Whitecloud

Vegas Golden Knights defenseman Zach Whitecloud will be keeping his own blog throughout the 2023 Stanley Cup Final against the Florida Panthers. He will check in regularly with behind-the-scenes access.

In his fifth entry, Whitecloud discusses the Golden Knights' 3-2 Game 4 win against the Panthers on Saturday, including the final 17.4 seconds after Alex Pietrangelo's delay of game penalty leading to Florida pushing for the tying goal. Whitecloud talks about breaking his stick in the mad scramble in front of the net and his thoughts about Vegas being one win from the Stanley Cup.

The last 17 seconds felt like time was flying by a million miles an hour, and obviously, no matter how much you tell yourself to stay calm it's tough. When a stick breaks you try not to panic, and I think someone else's stick broke, too, I think (Nicolas) Roy's did. I didn't know that; I found out after. We had that unfortunate penalty at the end, but stuff happens, and that's the game of hockey. So, 6-on-4, with that amount of time left, they are trying to funnel pucks to the net and kind of create battles. So, you just try to get up under sticks and keep the puck away from the net, and if it does, you get there, you bare down and you either try to eat it, clear it or just do anything you can to keep it out of the net.

The thing when Alex went to the penalty box, that's the thing. We've got six guys on the back end that can go and kill penalties, so whoever's number is called, we've got confidence in everyone to go out and get the job done. And it's been by committee that way the whole year, so when your number is called, you go out there and try to get the job done for your teammates and we did that. You get back in the room, everyone's pumped, excited. Those games are a full 60 minutes; they had their pushes and I think we did a good job managing that.

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On that final play, I know the puck came to the front and I was kind of scrambling and just trying to take away the far side. It's 6-on-4 and all of their six guys are probably collapsing at the net, and in total you have 10 guys in front of the net. So, a lot of chaos.

We are going home, but I won't look ahead to Game 5. The game of hockey is about having fun while winning. You win tonight and you take a little bit of time to enjoy it, and then you cut it loose by tonight and move on and prepare tomorrow and the next day, and focus on our side of the game and what we have to do to get the job done. But at the same time, it's just like life in general, don't get too far ahead of yourself, you don't look in the past, you don't look to the future. You live in the moment. It's cliché, right? Everybody says it, but it's so true, especially in the playoffs. You can't get caught looking ahead or dwelling on the past. It's game by game, shift by shift. It's a flight day tomorrow, it's rest day. So, we need to make sure that we are taking care of ourselves, and get back there and get ready for the next game.