LAS VEGAS -- Vegas, baby, Vegas.
The Vegas Golden Knights won the Stanley Cup for the first time in their six seasons, defeating the Florida Panthers 9-3 in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final at T-Mobile Arena on Tuesday.
Mark Stone scored a hat trick, Jack Eichel and Shea Theodore each had three assists, and Reilly Smith had a goal and an assist for Vegas. Adin Hill made 31 saves.
The Golden Knights had seven goal-scorers and 15 players with at least one point.
Sam Reinhart and Sam Bennett each had a goal and an assist, and Sergei Bobrovsky made 22 saves for the Panthers.
Florida played without forward Matthew Tkachuk, its leading scorer in the Stanley Cup Playoffs (24 points; 11 goals, 13 assists), who sustained an injury in Game 3 but played through it in Game 4. The Panthers did not disclose the nature of Tkachuk's injury before Game 5, but it is believed to be to his upper body.
Stone got the Golden Knights started by making it 1-0 with a short-handed goal off a 2-on-1 at 11:52 of the first period. He kept the puck on the rush and waited out Bobrovsky before shooting high to the glove side from in close.
Hill gave the Golden Knights a chance to score first with a left-pad save on Anton Lundell, who was in alone on him, at 2:24, and a save on Aleksander Barkov with his left skate 18 seconds before Stone's goal.
Nicolas Hague gave Vegas a 2-0 lead at 13:41. He came in from the blue line, got to a loose puck in front of Bobrovsky and put it in.
Jonathan Marchessault had an assist on Hague's goal to extend his Golden Knights playoff-record point streak to 10 games (15 points; eight goals, seven assists). He finished as the leading scorer in the playoffs with 25 points (13 goals, 12 assists) in 22 games.
Aaron Ekblad cut it to 2-1 at 2:15 of the second period with a shot through traffic from the right point that beat Hill over his left shoulder.
The Golden Knights scored four goals in the last 9:32 of the second period to put the game out of reach.
Alec Martinez scored from the right face-off circle off a drop pass from Eichel to make it 3-1 at 10:28.
Smith scored 1:45 later to make it 4-1 at 12:13, beating Bobrovsky from the right side after William Karlsson set him up with a no-look, backhanded, between-the-legs pass in the slot.
Stone's second of the game made it 5-1 at 17:15. Chandler Stephenson brought the puck into the zone on the right side and dropped it to Brett Howden, who moved it across to Stone in the left circle. His shot got through Bobrovsky.
Michael Amadio made it 6-1 at 19:58 by scoring from the slot on his own rebound.
Ivan Barbashev extended the lead to 7-1 at 8:22 of the third period. Reinhart cut it to 7-2 25 seconds later at 8:47, and Bennett made it 7-3 at 11:39 with a shot off Alex Pietrangelo's stick.
Stone finished his hat trick with an unassisted, length-of-the-ice empty-net goal to make it 8-3 at 14:06.
Nicolas Roy capped it at 18:58 for the 9-3 final.
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