Elliott: Golden Knights pummel the Panthers, coasting to their first Stanley Cup title

It was almost too much to absorb, but not too much to cherish.

Members of the Golden Knights hugged and cried and lifted the gleaming Stanley Cup skyward Tuesday, knowing their names will soon be etched on hockey’s biggest prize after a 9-3 rout of Florida that ended the Cup Final in five games. The details of how they got there didn’t matter in that moment. The emotions did.

“I don’t know how much I’ll remember about the hockey itself but I’ll certainly remember this group and the memories that we’ve shared throughout this year, and the ones that we’re going to make later this week,” Vegas defenseman Alec Martinez, a two-time Cup champion with the Kings, said while surrounded by friends and family on the chopped-up ice at T-Mobile Arena.

“Honestly, I think we genuinely love each other. I know that sounds so cliché but this team is so tight. The off-ice fun that we had translates onto the ice. When you have a group like that you’re inevitably going to face adversity. That’s inherently part of the game. There’s going to be injuries, there’s going to be downfalls, ups, downs. But genuinely I think it was the off-ice intangibles that were the difference maker.”

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Maybe so. And maybe it was the Golden Knights’ ability to build a big team with an unusually mobile defense and more goaltending depth than they thought they’d need, and their ability to turn into Stanley Cup champions a group that called itself the “Golden Misfits” in its first season because players had been deemed expendable and were left available in the expansion draft that stocked the new team’s roster.

The Golden Knights had reached the 2018 Cup Final in their first season but lost to the Washington Capitals in five games. For the franchise fee of $500 million paid by owner Bill Foley, they were given generous terms in that expansion draft, but they deserve credit for altering that roster as needed over the years. After missing the playoffs last season they fortified their numbers well enough to withstand extensive injuries, a strategy that paid off in the first championship in the franchise’s six-season history, including defeating Winnipeg, Edmonton and Dallas in the playoffs.

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman was booed, as always, when he presented the Cup to team captain Mark Stone, but he turned the jeers to cheers when he praised the team and the fans. “Not only is Vegas a hockey town, it’s a championship town,” he said.

Vegas needed five goaltenders to get through an injury-marred regular season and win the Pacific division. One of them was Jonathan Quick, Martinez’s teammate on those Kings championship teams. Tuesday was nine years to the day that the Martinez, Quick and the Kings won their second title.

Quick, traded by the Kings to Columbus and soon after flipped to Vegas, didn’t play a minute in the playoffs because of the excellence of Adin Hill, who had been acquired from San Jose for a fourth-round draft pick last summer. But Quick was the backup in the Final and shared the joy of this unexpected championship with his family, comforting his kids while they cried from happiness. And it seemed appropriate after the game when Martinez passed the Cup to Quick.

“It feels great. This feeling doesn’t get old.” he said. “We’ve got guys doing it the first time, a couple guys doing it the second time and [Martinez] third, Phil [Kessel] third. It’s just fun to be part of the group as a whole. You know how much hard work goes into it so you’re happy for all these guys and their families.”

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A four-goal flurry in the second period Tuesday, which included goals by Martinez and former King Michael Amadio, put the game out of the reach of the scrappy but undermanned Florida Panthers even before Mark Stone completed a hat trick. Panthers forward Matthew Tkachuk didn’t play because of an unspecified injury, but even he might not have made a difference against the determined Golden Knights.

Jonathan Marchessault, one of the original Misfits, won the Conn Smythe trophy as the most valuable player in the playoffs. He and four other original Golden Knights started the game, a classy gesture by coach Bruce Cassidy.

“It was cool,” said former Duck Shea Theodore, another of those so-called misfits. “It was definitely a special way to kick off the night.”

At the end, streamers fell from the ceiling, fans roared, and the Golden Knights’ victory song, “Viva Las Vegas,” filled the arena. There will be parties and a parade soon, but in the immediate aftermath of their victory, the Golden Knights could only marvel at what they’d done.

“This is one of the best feelings I’ll ever have,” Stone said. “You grind and grind your whole life to get here. First you grind to get drafted, then you grind to be an NHL player, then you grind to stay in the NHL and it’s all about playing.

“Four years ago when I got traded here [from Ottawa] this is all I could ask for, a championship, and now I’m standing here as a champion.”

Misfits no more. Champions forever.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.