LAS VEGAS — Mark the five-star Uber driver perks up when he learns you’re lucky enough to be heading to the rink for Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final.
Like pretty much every Las Vegas local whose path you cross, Mark is a diehard Golden Knights fan. And once Mark and his buddies figure out which watch party to take in the big, loud, unaffordable, final hockey game, he’ll turn off the meter in favour of history.
Big screens and sunscreen.
Maybe the watch party in Henderson. Or Summerlin. Or the wild pool party one. Or…
“Since they came in 2017,” Mark says, “they changed the city in a good way.”
What Mark and the thousands of other giddy desert dwellers witnessed Tuesday inside T-Mobile Arena was less of a game and more of a coronation.
A historic 9-3 home-ice romp for Vegas over the banged-up, overmatched Florida Panthers. A bass-driven, ear-popping, showgirl-dancing exclamation point on a five-game series that never truly felt in doubt.
Gold meets silver.
Knights turned kings.
The house always wins.
Huzzah!
FULFILL THE PROPHECY read one fan-made sign pressed hard against the glass in the Vegas zone during warmups. Her placard was a reference to expansion team owner Bill Foley’s bold proclamation that his glittery new franchise would hoist sport’s most potable trophy within six years from birth.
That seemed lunatic, considering the arduous plights of this sport’s expansion clubs.
But Foley and those under him attacked their mission like the fastest of forechecks, and the citizens wasted no time attaching themselves to their collection of castoffs and, later, hired guns.
Rocked to its core by the Oct. 1, 2017 mass shooting that would claim 58 lives and injure 700 more, original Knight and Vegas resident Deryk Engelland delivered a home-opener speech that helped a community begin to heal.
Vegas’s first major men’s professional sports team, and its unfathomable rookie run to the final in 2017-18, gave Las Vegans a space to feel good, to connect, to believe.
Six years later, with six original Misfits remaining —Jonathan Marchessault, Rielly Smith, William Karlsson, Shea Theodore, Brayden McNabb, and William Carrier — the bond between city and team has strengthened.
They sell out every night. Even their suburban school-day practices are packed with rowdy, blue-collar fans cheering on their meaningless goals and choking the players’ parkade to sneak a glimpse or summon a wave from their favourite.
“It’s tough to even get in the parking lot,” Carrier chuckles.
When new coach Bruce Cassidy arrived at the beginning of this championship campaign, he was floored by the sheer number of Golden Knights specialty licence plates on the roads.
“They’ve gotten behind their team quickly. Some of that has to do, I think, with the first-year success they had. So, they love the sport. The parents and the kids are in it,” Cassidy explains.
“The fan base is behind the team 100 per cent. They’re very positive. You know, they haven’t been jaded from negative experiences. I think it’s been mostly positive. I think that helps with interaction, especially as a coach.
“They want good things to happen for their team. Vegas born. I think that means a lot to this group.”
Adds Smith: “They’ve been cheering us on for practices and pregame skates all the time. So, it’s great for us. It definitely keeps the emotion level high.”
Equally lofty as the emotions of this night has been the aggression of the Knights’ front office.
Original GM George McPhee twisted his leverage like a steel blade in the hearts of businessmen during the expansion draft, collecting picks in addition to core pieces teams like, oh, say, Florida (Marchessault and Smith) would regret losing.
Such calculated off-ice ruthlessness has been a staple on the Strip, where McPhee and Kelly McCrimmon have axed two respected and winning coaches despite only missing the playoffs once due to bad injury luck.
Whether targeting a No. 1 horse defenceman (Alex Pietrangelo) in free agency, a No. 1 centre (Jack Eichel) via blockbuster trade, or opposing teams’ captains, Vegas has been laser-focused on its road to building a winner.
Even if it means casting aside hyped-up prospects (Nick Suzuki) or beloved chucks of its core, such as Marc-Andre Fleury or Alex Tuch.
There has been impatience and persistence. And the cost to this cutthroat sporting business on a human level has been “damn high,” McCrimmon admits.
“But at the same time, if you have these jobs and you want to avoid the hard decisions, you probably shouldn’t have these jobs.”
Vegas has been front and centre in the lessons of cap space as commodity. Athletes too.
“These guys want to win, man. Everybody in this organization wants to win. The owner stated that he wants to win — badly,” captain Mark Stone said.
“I mean, you can see it. We’ve spent to the salary cap. We’ve added players. And not just players. We’ve added top-end players. Added a No. 1 defenceman in Pietrangelo, a No. 1 centre last year. We’re adding key pieces all the time that we’ve been here.
“And you look at those [original]guys, they just want to win, man. Marchessault, Karlsson, Smith, those guys will do anything it takes. McNabb, Theodore, those guys, they’re almost like all play together. Carrier’s got a killer drive. I think everybody on this team just wants to win.”
McPhee and McCrimmon added nine rings to the dressing room for this run. Soon, boxes and boxes more of them will be shipped from a jeweller.
That Pietrangelo, Stone, and Eichel all played starring roles in this lopsided final (aggregate score: 26-12) speaks to the value of risk-taking, of swinging big.
“Those are certainly blockbuster movies. There was logic, motivation, and rationale behind it,” McCrimmon says.
“But as well, we’ve made some real subtle moves that have been really beneficial. Nic Roy was a trade. Chandler Stephenson was a trade. Keegan Kolesar was a trade. Alec Martinez was a trade.”
Goalie Adin Hill, too, was a trade. A steal. An unlikely rejuvenation.
There is Vegas born and Vegas reborn.
Eichel fits the latter bill. After years of losing and headbutting in Buffalo, he was phenomenal in this final. He doesn’t regret the hardship that defined his pre-Vegas career, and he’ll rejoice in the present.
“It means the world,” Eichel said. “I can’t say enough good things about this whole organization. Ownership, management, obviously everything that they did to allow me to get back to playing. But just even the way that they take care of you, and the trainers and the equipment guys and the people upstairs in the office.
“It really feels like a big family, and everyone cares for each other, and they really look out for you. And I think that just speaks volumes about the people at the top and what they do for this organization. It just trickles down. And we feel the love in here as a team.”
That’s the crux.
Vegas, its players, its fans, feel like a team.
That’s why the Conn Smythe could be sawed like a magic show lady in half twice over.
The Vegas Golden Knights‘ Stanley Cup championship is a win for bold risk and big spending, for experience and selflessness and balance throughout the lineup.
“We’re a four-line team. We have those top players and all the key positions, but we also have very good depth of the forward position, very good depth on our blue line,” McCrimmon said.
“It’s been a process that’s, I think, been calculated. I think it’s been based on good decisions made for the right reasons.
“We think we made our best team.”
Now, Mark the humble Uber driver and everyone else in this crazy circus of a town — nay, in the hockey world — knows they did.
Fox’s Fast 5
• Matthew Tkachuk leads the Panthers in every major statistical category. Too hurt to play Game 5, he was replaced by 22-year-old Grigori Denisenko.
Denisenko had played a total of 26 NHL games and has never scored a goal. His playoff debut arrived with Florida’s season on the line.
A contrast in depth.
• Gene Principe and 50 Cent is the collab we didn’t know we needed. Fiddy cranked the siren to kick off Game 5.
• A couple of hours before puck drop, the least expensive nosebleed seat for Game 5 in Vegas on Ticketmaster cost $1,441.38 USD (after fees). A chance to witness history does not come cheap. Even a “no view” ticket to get in the building was going for upwards of $600.
• The Panthers’ finished the final minus-one on their own power play. Just a dominant showing by Vegas’s penalty killers.
• If only William Carrier played net…
