The Vegas Golden Knights, born out of trepidation, tragedy and ultimately triumph, won their first Stanley Cup in just their sixth season, beating the Florida Panthers, 9-3, at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on Tuesday.
The Knights, the top seed in the Western Conference, used a high-speed, sharp-elbowed attack to overwhelm the Panthers, the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference, in five games. The Knights were making their second appearance in the finals, the same as the Panthers.
But while the Panthers came within one round of a championship for the first time since 1996, the Knights made the second-fastest trip to a Stanley Cup victory by any team in the expansion era that began in 1967, trailing only the Edmonton Oilers, who won the Cup in their fifth season in the league.