Vegas Passed All Of The NHL's Tests

In a season when other teams broke records, the Golden Knights just broke opponents' winning formulas.

What started with the tension of any potential championship-clinching game — even one with the underdog’s best player sidelined — quickly turned into one big party Tuesday night, as the Vegas Golden Knights crushed the Florida Panthers 9-3 in the fifth and deciding game of the 2023 Stanley Cup Final. That was fitting: after all, who throws a party better than Las Vegas?

The Golden Knights earned the raucous celebration. For a franchise that instantly set the bar sky-high with a run to the Final in its first season of existence, the expectations have been to win the Cup from practically the beginning. Six years in, Vegas finally cashed in its chips and got the title it had been looking for ever since executing basically the perfect build-a-team strategy back in the summer of 2017. A moment like this felt like it had been in the cards for a while.

At various times during the season, though, I wondered whether these Knights truly belonged among the cream of the league’s championship-contending crop. Their regular-season stats were solid but not amazing, and they weren’t brimming with star performances either. But the cool thing about the playoffs is that they give teams a chance to answer the doubts of armchair analysts like me. And Vegas just passed one of the most thorough postseason examinations we’ve seen a champion go through in a long time.

In the opening series, the Golden Knights beat a Winnipeg Jets team that was subpar on offense but had a defense that allowed 0.44 fewer goals per game than average during the regular season. Vegas scored 3.8 goals per game in that series, more than a goal per game better than what Winnipeg usually allowed (2.7) in the regular season. Consider that offensive test passed.

The next round, Vegas beat an Edmonton Oilers team that was average on defense but scored 0.78 more goals per game than average during the regular season. But the Golden Knights held the high-flying Oilers to just 3.2 goals per game in that series, far less than the 4.0 Edmonton usually scored in the regular season. Consider that defensive test passed.

Maybe the toughest test seemed to loom in Round 3, with the Dallas Stars. Dallas was more than 0.3 goals per game better than average both on offense (+0.30) and defense (+0.52) during the regular season. Beating the Stars was going to require everything Vegas had at both ends of the ice. And the Golden Knights had what it took: they scored many more goals per game (3.5) than Dallas allowed on average (2.6) and they allowed far fewer (2.0) than Dallas usually scored (3.4). Vegas passed the two-way test with flying colors.

Finally, there were the upstart Florida Panthers, who specialized in slaying giants like the record-setting Boston Bruins — a team I had once believed were much more likely to win the Cup than Vegas. Florida posed a test of their own for the Knights’ defense; they scored 0.36 more goals per game than league average during the regular season. But you guessed it: Vegas held Florida to 2.4 goals per game in the Final, more than a goal per game lower than the Panthers’ usual average (3.5). Because why not pass another test en route to hoisting the Cup?

We haven’t seen a team beat at least one +0.3 or better offensive team, at least one +0.3 or better defensive team AND a separate team that was +0.3 or better at both ends of the ice since the New Jersey Devils did it while winning it all in 2003. Since the path to the Cup expanded to the standard four-round bracket in 1980, Vegas is only the seventh team to survive that particular all-around gauntlet and live to tell the championship tale.

At every stop along the way, Jonathan Marchessault, Mark Stone, Jack Eichel, Adin Hill and company took what the opponent did well and completely neutralized it. Based on that postseason performance, you can’t say Vegas was not the signature team of this 2022-23 season, and a truly deserving champion from the top of the roster to the bottom.

Filed under: NHL