Jackpot! The Vegas Golden Knights Win The 2023 Stanley Cup

They aced their expansion draft. They were aggressive about improvement. Then they stumbled out of the playoff sandbox just one year ago.

And now they’re champions.

On Monday, the Vegas Golden Knights defeated the Florida Panthers 9-3 to win the 2023 Stanley Cup in front of their rapturous fans in T-Mobile Arena, right on the Las Vegas Strip.

It’s a stunning success story for an expansion team in just its sixth year of existence — and whose owner, Bill Foley, was roundly ridiculed for talking about a quick run to a title when he ponied up his $500 million expansion fee ahead of his team’s debut in the 2017-18 season.

The Buffalo Sabres currently hold the NHL’s longest playoff drought, at 12 years. They joined the league as an expansion team in 1970 — and have never won a Stanley Cup. Now, the Golden Knights have made it to the top of the mountain in just their sixth season of operation.

“Bill Foley had the vision, the creativity and the audacity to bring the first major-league team to Las Vegas,” said NHL commissioner Gary Bettman as he prepared to present the Stanley Cup to Golden Knights captain Mark Stone following Monday’s game. “And then he said, ‘We’re going to win the Stanley Cup in six years.’”

“What’s happened here has been simply incredible,” Bettman added. “Not only is Vegas a hockey town, it’s a championship town.”

Stone is the only captain of Vegas’s brief history, wearing the ‘C’ for the last three seasons. When he was dealt to the Golden Knights at the 2019 trade deadline, he was reunited with his junior hockey owner and general manager from the WHL’s Barndon Wheat Kings, now-Vegas GM Kelly McCrimmon.

After posing for a photo with Bettman and the trophy, 31-year-old Stone hoisted it aloft, per tradition. Then, the next six players to take their turns with the Cup were the six original Golden Misfits who were selected in the 2017 expansion draft and are still on the roster — Reilly Smith, Jonathan Marchessault, William Karlsson, Braden McNabb, Shea Theodore and William Carrier.

First-year Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy, himself a bit of a Misfit after he was fired by the Boston Bruins at the end of last season, made a point of starting those first five Misfits for Game 5. And fittingly, the winner of the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP also came from that group — forward Jonathan Marchessault, an undrafted 5’9” 32-year-old who was cast off by the Panthers, of all teams, at the expansion draft. He finished the playoffs with 13 goals, tied for first with Leon Draisaitl of the Edmonton Oilers.

Marchessault’s 25 points were second in the playoffs, one point behind teammate Jack Eichel — who arrived by trade as damaged goods in the fall of 2021, seeking a cutting-edge neck surgery that the medical staff of his original team, the Sabres, was unwilling to approve.

The surgery was a success. And now, in his eighth NHL season, the player who was previously best known for being drafted second behind Connor McDavid in 2015 and who had never skated in a playoff game before this year will spend Monday night drinking out of the Stanley Cup.

After the Misfits, the next group to parade with the trophy were the past Cup champions who helped strengthen the backbone of the championship squad — former St. Louis Blues captain Alex Pietrangelo, two-time Cup winner Alec Martinez, and his one-time Los Angeles Kings teammate Jonathan Quick. Then came Chandler Stephenson, who hoisted his first Cup on the ice as a visitor to T-Mobile Arena in 2018, as a member of the Washington Capitals.

Whenever a hockey championship is awarded, players pay tribute to their teammates, their coaches, their families and those who have helped them along the way. This group is the same — but the bond is a little more unique because of the organization’s quick rise to success, which included a trip the Stanley Cup Final in Year 1.

The connection to the fans is also unique. Las Vegas locals love the team because the Golden Knights are the first major pro sports team to be birthed in Vegas, rather than imported as a relocated franchise, and because the first-year Knights brought comfort to a community that was reeling when they first stepped on the ice for their home opener on Oct. 10, 2017 — only nine days after the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival mass shooting which left 61 people dead and more than 400 injured with wounds from the gunfire.

The Golden Knights also breathed fresh life into the NHL’s business model — immediately becoming one of the highest-revenue teams in the league, raising the bar for game presentation and making their $500 million expansion fee seem like a bargain. Four years later, the Seattle Kraken paid $650 million to join and have built upon those trends with their superb arena experience and community involvement, along with an unexpected trip to the second round of this year’s playoffs after they unseated the defending Stanley Cup Champion Colorado Avalanche in a Game 7 overtime thriller.

As for the Golden Knights, they went from a playoff miss in 2021-22 to a Western Conference regular-season title this season, then lost just six games on their way to accumulating the 16 wins needed to claim the Stanley Cup.

They took down the Winnipeg Jets in five games in Round 1 — most crucially, coming out on top of a double-overtime thriller on the road which gave them a 2-1 series lead. Next up, Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers, who they dispatched in six despite losing their primary goaltender Laurent Brossoit to injury in Game 3 of that series.

But from there, 27-year-old journeyman Adin Hill stepped in and stood tall the rest of the way, finishing the postseason with a record of 11-4, a .932 save percentage and a 2.17 goals-against average. In the Western Conference Final, Vegas bested the Dallas Stars in six games before facing the underdog Panthers, who hadn’t missed a beat while knocking out the top-seeded Boston Bruins, fourth-seeded Toronto Maple Leafs and second-seeded Carolina Hurricanes.

In the end, the Golden Knights’ depth proved to be too much. They jumped out to a 2-0 series lead on home ice, then split the games in Florida before returning home for their coronation on Monday night.

Next up: let’s see what Vegas can do with its first-ever Stanley Cup parade.