Golden Knights eliminate Stars to reach second-ever Stanley Cup Final

The Vegas Golden Knights put together a clinical Game 6 victory Monday night, defeating the Dallas Stars, 6-0, advancing to the Stanley Cup Final.

The Golden Knights will battle the Florida Panthers in the Stanley Cup Finals, with Game 1 set for Saturday at 5:00 p.m. from T-Mobile Arena.

As for last night, Vegas played perhaps their most complete game of the series in Game 6, controlling play for large portions and eventually shutting out the Stars for the second time in the series.

“It was definitely our best game of the playoffs and it came at the right time,” head coach Bruce Cassidy said. “Boy if we can bottle that going forward, we’re going to be a tough team to beat.”

The structurally sound and dominant performance comes just two days after one of the more disappointing Golden Knights’ performances in their Game 5 loss on home ice.

Cassidy’s plan and the players’ execution of it were flawless Monday night and gave the team reason for optimism heading into the Stanley Cup Final.

The players who got the ball rolling in Game 6 weren’t superstars by any means.

It wasn’t center Jack Eichel or Captain Mark Stone making a flashy play to get things started, but rather the team’s fourth line that generated the early chances and goals.

“They set the tone right away,” Eichel said. “They’ve been doing that for us all season, so not surprised to see them chipping in the way they did tonight.”

That line would score the game’s first goal after a flurry of early chances. It came off the stick of left-wing William Carrier just after defenseman Nicolas Roy won a puck battle in a corner to feed the eventual goal scorer.

When the fourth line sets the tone like that, everything else falls into place.

“There’s a lot of teams around this league that would love to have them as their third or second line,” Stone said. “When you get that kind of contribution from up and down the lineup it’s a great feeling.”

The fourth line wasn’t the only line going for Vegas in Game 6. The third line of center William Karlsson, right-wing Reilly Smith and center Michael Amadio scored three of the six Vegas goals and provided a 200-foot game for the Knights all night.

After all of the goal-scoring subsided and the final seconds ticked off the clock at American Airlines Center, the thoughts of everything that got the players to this moment ran through their heads.

But what ran through the head of goaltender Adin Hill, the man who was about to post his second shutout in the Western Conference Final and have a chance to play for the Stanley Cup?

“I was thinking if we were going to touch the trophy or not,” Hill said. “I don’t know the rules around here.”

Hill, who said he had “probably my easiest game of the playoffs so far,” had some time for his mind to wander given how strong the team was in front of him.

So, did they touch it? No.

There is a mystique around the NHL’s conference championship trophies, with some teams adamant about not touching them so as to not incur bad luck for the final round.

This is mostly just a fun footnote at this point, however, as teams that have both touched and not touched their conference championship trophies have gone on to win the Stanley Cup.

The decision was left up to those who have prior experience with the trophy, according to Stone. The team didn’t feel the need to touch the Clarence S. Campbell Bowl, because their eyes are still set on the Cup.

"It's great to be back, but you want to win the thing,” defenseman Alec Martinez said on Fox Sports Las Vegas after the game. “I'm pumped, but there's a lot of work to be done ahead."

The work will begin later this week when the Golden Knights hit the ice to prepare for their final opponent in these playoffs, the Panthers.

Florida upset the Boston Bruins in Round 1 before beating the Maple Leafs in five games and sweeping the Metropolitan division-winning Hurricanes in the Eastern Conference Final.

They snuck into the postseason, but have loudly marched through it. It will be a tough test for the Golden Knights, but they know what they need to do and how they need to play to succeed.

Vegas is desperate to right the wrongs of 2018 as it doesn’t want to be on the other side of the Final left wondering ‘what if?’ again.