Vegas Golden Knights right wing Mark Stone holds the Stanley Cup after defeating the Florida Panthers 9-3 in Game 5 of the National Hockey League Finals on June 13, 2023, in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Knights won the series 4-1.
Credit: © John Locher, AP Photo

The Vegas Golden Knights routed the Florida Panthers 9-3 yesterday, winning the best-of-seven Stanley Cup Finals, the National Hockey League’s championship, four games to one. The win caps the Golden Knights’ swift rise from expansion team to member of the upper echelons of the league.

The Golden Knights took an early two-games-to-none lead in the series. The Panthers won a come-from-behind overtime win in game three, but their star forward Matthew Tkachuk fractured his sternum during the contest and was not a major factor in the rest of the series.

With a 10-game point (goals plus assists) streak and 13 goals and 12 assists overall, forward Jonathan Marchessault won the Conn Smythe Trophy for the playoffs’ most valuable player. Marchessault, one of the six remaining players on Vegas’s roster from its inaugural season in 2017, defeated the team that had let him go. In fact, the Panthers traded Reilly Smith to Vegas so they would take Marchessault instead of defensemen Alex Petrovic and Mark Pysyk during the expansion draft. The French-Canadian burned his former team to the tune of four goals and four assists.

Marchessault’s partner in the withering Vegas offense was veteran center Jack Eichel. Eichel scored six goals and had 20 assists in the Golden Knight’s playoff run. After goaltender Laurent Brossoit was injured during the second round, backup Adin Hill helped guide Vegas through a grueling six-game barnburner against the Dallas Stars. The series featured three overtime games and two shutouts from Hill.

The Panthers were the Cinderella story of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. They snuck into the tournament with the fewest standings points (92, with two points awarded per win and one point awarded for each overtime loss) of any playoff team. They were paired against the mighty Boston Bruins in the first round. Odds-on favorites to win the Cup, the Bruins had set the NHL records for wins (65 in an 82-game season) and standings points (135). But Florida stunned the hockey world by knocking off Boston in seven games. The upstart Panthers then dispatched the formidable Toronto Maple Leafs in five games and the Carolina Hurricanes in four to reach the Finals.

The Vegas Golden Knights have a short history filled with success. In 2017, the NHL held an expansion draft that allowed the Golden Knights to pick players from other teams. Responding to past expansion teams in the NHL and other sports being mired in mediocrity for years, the league reduced the number of players each team could “protect” from being picked by the new team. Vegas took advantage of the new draft rules and had one of the best inaugural seasons by an expansion franchise in any major professional sport. They finished first in the Pacific Division and made it to the Stanley Cup Finals, but lost to the Washington Capitals. Overall, Vegas has made the playoffs in five of its first six seasons.

Until 2017, Las Vegas had no major professional sports teams. Due to relaxing attitudes towards sports betting and a booming population, that situation quickly changed. Now, the city has a championship NHL team and a National Football League (NFL) team (the Raiders, who moved from Oakland in 2020). Furthermore, on the day the Knights won the Cup, the Nevada state senate passed a bill to fund $380 million towards building a Major-League-Baseball-caliber ballpark on the Las Vegas Strip. The legislative approval was seen as the last major hurdle for the Athletics, currently of Oakland, to move to the state.

With many of its star players signed on for next year, the Golden Knights will remain the bright center of the newly-formed Vegas sports solar system.

Washington Capitals left wing Alex Ovechkin skates in a game against the Carolina Hurricanes.
Credit: © Andy Martin Jr, Alamy Images

GOAL! In December, professional hockey player Alex Ovechkin, who plays for the Washington Capitals, became the player with the second most goals in NHL history with 802 goals. He passed Gordie Howe’s record of 801 points. Hockey star Wayne Gretzky holds the number one record with 894 goals. However, Ovechkin isn’t retiring anytime soon!

He scored two goals in a game against the Winnipeg Jets on Friday, December 23rd, 2022. His first goal of the game tied him with Howe in the first quarter. With one minute left in the third quarter, he gracefully shot the puck into the goal to beat Howe’s record. The Capitals defeated the Jets 4 to 1.

Alexander Ovechkin is a Russian-born hockey player. He is one of the stars of the National Hockey League (NHL). Ovechkin, a left wing for the Washington Capitals, led the NHL in scoring with 112 points (65 goals and 47 assists) in the 2007-2008 season. He has led the league in goals scored nine times (2007-2008, 2008-2009, 2012-2013, 2013-2014, 2014-2015, 2015-2016, 2017-2018, 2018-2019, and 2019-2020).

Ovechkin won the Hart Memorial Trophy as the NHL’s Most Valuable Player for the 2007-2008, 2008-2009, and 2012-2013 seasons. He also won the Lester B. Pearson Award (now the Ted Lindsay Award) for the 2007-2008, 2008-2009, and 2009-2010 seasons. The award is given to the most outstanding player in the NHL as voted by the league’s players. In 2018, Ovechkin led Washington to its first Stanley Cup championship. He was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as the Most Valuable Player in the 2018 playoffs.

Ovechkin was born on September 17th, 1985, in Moscow, U.S.S.R. (now Russia). He began playing hockey with Dynamo Moscow in the Russian Super League in 2001 at the age of 16 and spent four seasons with the team. Ovechkin was chosen by Washington as the first player selected in the 2004 NHL draft. However, he did not play with the Capitals until 2005, because the 2004-2005 NHL season was canceled due to a labor dispute between the players and owners. Ovechkin won the Calder Memorial Trophy in 2006 as the NHL Rookie of the Year. His 65 goals in 2007-2008 set an NHL record for left wingers.

Ovechkin helped the Russian national team win the men’s world championship in 2008. He played for Russia in the 2006 and 2010 Olympic Games.

Colorado Avalanche plays the Tampa Bay Lightning for the 2022 Stanley Cup.
Credit: © Dirk Shadd, Tampa Bay Times/ZUMA Press/Alamy Images

The Colorado Avalanche defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning 2 to 1 on Sunday, winning the best-of-seven Stanley Cup Finals, the National Hockey League’s championship, four games to two. They overcame a controversial penalty call in Game 5 and a 1-0 deficit early in Game 6 to secure the team’s first Stanley Cup victory since 2001.

Twenty-three-year-old defenseman Cale Makar was unanimously selected as the Conn Smythe Trophy for most valuable player in the playoffs. He racked up 8 goals and 21 assists during the playoffs. Veteran center Nathan MacKinnon accrued 13 goals and 11 assists during the playoffs. 

After a solid regular season, journeyman goaltender Darcy Kuemper had a mixed performance in the playoffs including a Game 3 Finals loss in which he gave up five goals on 22 shots. Kuemper stepped up Game 6, however, blocking 22 out of 23 Tampa Bay shots on goal. 

The Avs denied the Lightning a chance at a third consecutive Stanley Cup win. The Lightning were trying to win three in a row for the first time since the New York Islanders won four consecutive Finals from 1980-1983. 

Like thunderclouds approaching a mountain overburdened with snow, the Avalanche and the Lightning seemed destined to meet in the 2022 Stanley Cup Finals. Colorado racked up 56 wins during the regular season, narrowly missing the Presidents’ Trophy for best regular-season record. The Lightning are a perennial powerhouse, having made it at least as far as the Eastern Conference Final six out of the last eight seasons.

Even the best teams rarely have an easy path through hockey’s second season, but the two teams’ road was less difficult than most. Only one playoff series the two teams participated went to seven games, when the Toronto Maple Leafs pushed the Bolts to the brink of eliminations during first round. Colorado swept an overmatched Edmonton Oilers team in the Western Conference Final. Tampa Bay defeated the New York Rangers in six games to take the Prince of Wales Trophy.  

The Colorado Avalanche underwent a painful rebuild to reach this point. They were the worst team in the league in 2016-2017 season. But general manager Joe Sakic (a Hall-of-Fame Avalanche player) stuck with rookie coach Jared Bednar and picked up Makar in the 2017 draft. Sakic then made a series of shrewd moves that slowly improved the team over the next few years. He acquired forwards Andre Burakovsky and Nazem Kadri and goalie Kuemper, among others, through trades. 

The Avalanche are poised to compete for the Cup for years to come. Few of their players are on the wrong side of 30. Time will tell if they can go back-to-back, as Tampa Bay did. But the Lightning aren’t going away, either, led by captain Steven Stamkos. Hockey fans may witness this elemental clash again in future playoffs.

Canadian hockey player Willie O’Ree
Credit: © Len Lahman, Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

February is Black History Month, an annual observance of the achievements and culture of Black Americans. This month, Behind the Headlines will feature Black pioneers in a variety of areas. 

In January 2022, U.S. President Joe Biden signed the Willie O’Ree Congressional Gold Medal Act. O’Ree became the first National Hockey League (NHL) player to receive the Congressional Gold Medal. This happened shortly after the Boston Bruins retired his jersey number, 22. The city of Boston also declared January 18 “Willie O’Ree Day.”

O’Ree was the first Black hockey player in the NHL. O’Ree played right wing for the Quebec Aces, a minor league affiliate of the NHL Boston Bruins, before being called up to play for the Bruins in January 1958.

William Eldon O’Ree was born on Oct. 15, 1935, in Fredericton, Canada. He grew up the youngest of 13 children, in an area with few Black families. He began skating at the age of 3. For most of his youth, he played hockey and baseball. In 1955, O’Ree was invited to try out for the Milwaukee (now Atlanta) Braves of Major League Baseball (MLB). He instead chose to join the Kitchener Canucks of the Ontario Hockey Association. An injury on the rink caused O’Ree to lose sight in his right eye. Despite this, he was invited to play right wing for the Quebec Aces. O’Ree scored 22 goals that season, and the Quebec Aces won the Quebec Senior Hockey League championship.

The following season, the Boston Bruins called up O’Ree as a temporary replacement. On Jan. 18, 1958, O’Ree became the first Black hockey player to play for an NHL team. O’Ree spent the next few seasons playing on a few different teams, before being invited back to play for the Bruins in 1961. That year, he played 43 games for the Bruins, scoring a total of 14 points. O’Ree spent the last 18 years of his career playing on minor league teams, including the Los Angeles Blades and the San Diego Gulls, before retiring in 1979. In 1998, O’Ree became the director of youth development for the NHL’s Diversity Task Force. In 2018, O’Ree was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, Canada. If you want to learn more about O’Ree, the award-winning documentary Willie (2019) tells his life story.

Vancouver Canucks left wing Nils Hoglander (21) passes the puck to center Bo Horvat (53) as Seattle Kraken center Colin Blackwell (43) defends in front of goaltender Philipp Grubauer during the first period of an NHL hockey game, in Seattle
Canucks Kraken Hockey, Seattle, United States – 01 Jan 2022.
Credit: © Ted S Warren, AP Images/Shutterstock

The Seattle Kraken‘s debut season has been impacted by COVID-19 and made somewhat of a belly flop. The Kraken are a professional hockey team that plays in the National Hockey League (NHL). The Kraken compete in the Pacific Division of the Western Conference. The team plays its home games at Climate Pledge Arena, located near the Space Needle.

The Kraken began regular-season play in October 2021. The highly anticipated team has met health roadblocks that have hampered their play. With canceled practices and Covid outbreaks, defensive and offensive lines have been unable to make an effective practice.

In 2017, the city of Seattle, Washington, selected the entertainment development company Oak View Group (OVG) to renovate the city’s KeyArena. At that same time, a group of OVG executives and other investors launched a campaign to purchase an NHL expansion team. In December 2018, the NHL Board of Governors voted unanimously to approve the bid, awarding the group the 32nd NHL franchise. In June 2020, the online shopping company Amazon.com, Inc., purchased the naming rights to KeyArena and renamed it Climate Pledge Arena, after the company’s initiative to reduce its environmental impact.

In July 2020, the team was named the Seattle Kraken. In 2021, the Kraken selected players from 30 other NHL teams in an expansion draft. The NHL exempted the Vegas Golden Knights because it was a recent expansion team.

Seattle was home to many professional and amateur hockey teams before the Kraken. The Seattle Metropolitans played from 1914 to 1924 in the Pacific Coast Hockey Association. In 1917, they became the first team based in the United States to win the Stanley Cup, defeating the Montreal Canadiens of the National Hockey Association (NHA). The Canadiens and three other NHA teams formed the NHL later that year. The Metropolitans faced the Canadiens again for the Stanley Cup in 1919, but an outbreak of the Spanish flu canceled the series.

Seattle continued to host other professional hockey teams not affiliated with the NHL into the 1970’s. Two separate attempts to secure an NHL franchise for the city failed, one in the 1970’s and another in the late 1980’s and early 1990′s.

Tampa, Florida, USA. 7th July, 2021. Tampa Bay Lightning celebrate their 1-0 victory over the Montreal Canadiens to win the Stanley Cup Wednesday, July 7, 2021 in Tampa. For the second year in a row the Lightning are able to hoist the coveted Stanley Cup.
Credit: © Dirk Shadd, Tampa Bay Times/ZUMA Wire/Alamy Images

For the second time in a little over nine months, the Tampa Bay Lightning have won the Stanley Cup. The Lightning beat the Montreal Canadiens 1-0 on Wednesday, winning the best-of-seven Stanley Cup Finals four games to one.

The Lightning became the 17th National Hockey League (NHL) team to win two or more consecutive championships, though none have had as quick of a turnaround as Tampa Bay did. The team wrapped up their previous Stanley Cup championship on Sept. 28, 2020. That 2019-2020 season was greatly delayed and shorted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Teams had to compete in “bubbles” during the playoffs, isolated from everyone other than teammates and team personnel. No fans were in attendance. This year, Lightning captain Steven Stamkos and his team got to hoist the Cup on home ice in front of tens of thousands of screaming fans.

COVID-19 still loomed large over the 2020-2021 NHL season. The season began in January 2021 and was shortened to 56 games to give the Lightning and other playoff teams a short break. Several outbreaks among players forced game postponements. Border quarantine protocols kept friends and family of Lightning players from attending the fourth game of the finals in Montreal. Canadiens interim head coach Dominique Ducharme missed several playoff games due to his testing positive for the virus.

In beating the Canadiens (nicknamed the Habs), Tampa Bay goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy, nicknamed the Big Cat, extended his record to five straight series-clinching shutouts, stopping all 22 shots that came his way. He earned the Conn Smythe Trophy for the most valuable player of the playoffs for his outstanding play. The Big Cat went 16-7 with five shutouts, a .937 save percentage and a 1.90 goals-against average over his 23 playoff starts.

Vasilevskiy had set the record during the semifinals, in which the New York Islanders pushed the Lightning to the brink of elimination in their quest to repeat victory. But the goalie went 18-for-18 saves in game 7 as the Lightning defeated the Islanders by a 1-0 score. The defeat was all too familiar for the Islanders, who fell to Tampa Bay in the semifinals during the 2020 playoffs.

It’s hard to lose a playoff series when you never lose back-to-back games. The Lightning are now 14-0 after a loss over the last two Stanley Cup Playoffs.

The Tampa area has dominated North American professional sports recently. Over the last year, Tampa Bay teams have won the Stanley Cup twice, the National Football League (NFL) Super Bowl (Tampa Bay Buccaneers, which featured the first ever win for a team at their home city, since the Super Bowl is played at a prearranged site), and have appeared in the Major League Baseball (MLB) World Series (Tampa Bay Rays, losing to the Los Angeles Dodgers). With the region’s luck, it might be an attractive destination for a new National Basketball Association (NBA) or Major League Soccer (MLS) team!

American hockey player Kendall Coyne (center)
Credit: © Iurii Osadchi, Shutterstock

March is Women’s History Month, an annual observance of women’s achievements and contributions to society. This month, Behind the Headlines will feature woman pioneers in a variety of areas. 

Hockey is not a sport that has traditionally provided many opportunities for women. But one of the fastest players on ice is working to change all that.

Kendall Coyne is one of the greatest women’s hockey players of all time. Coyne is known for her blazing speed. In 2019, she became the first woman ever to compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) All-Star Skills fastest skater challenge. Coyne finished seventh with a time of 14.346 seconds, less than 1 second off the lead time.

Coyne was born in Oak Lawn, Illinois, near Chicago, on May 25, 1992. She grew up in Palos Heights. Her parents enrolled her in figure skating at the age of 3, but she protested that she wanted to play hockey. For much of her youth, she played on boys’ teams. Topping out at 5 feet 2 inches (157 centimeters) in height and 125 pounds (57 kilograms), she was eventually deemed too small to continue to play boys’ hockey. She began competing on women’s teams, but continued to skate practice with men.

Coyne played hockey at Northeastern University, becoming the leading scorer in the history of the school at 249 points. She earned a B.A. degree in 2015 and an M.S. degree in 2017, both from Northeastern.

Coyne has played for the United States in a number of international competitions. She won a gold medal at the Winter Olympics in 2018 and a silver medal in 2014. She won gold medals at the Ice Hockey Federation Women’s World Championships in 2011, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2019.

The professional women’s team Boston Pride selected Coyne third overall in the first round of the 2015 National Women’s Hockey League (NWHL) draft. In 2016, she signed with the independent Minnesota Whitecaps. Coyne played for the Whitecaps through the 2018-2019 season, when the team joined the NWHL. Coyne became one of more than 200 top players to sit out the 2019-2020 NWHL season, citing low wages and lack of health insurance. Coyne and others joined to form the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association to work to improve opportunities for women in hockey.

The NHL Chicago Blackhawks hired Coyne as a player development coach in 2020. She has also worked as a hockey broadcaster. In 2018, she married the American football player Michael Schofield and began going by the name Kendall Coyne Schofield.

April 8, 2020

Today, April 8, Behind the Headlines was originally scheduled to cover this year’s National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) basketball championships in the United States. However, the men’s and women’s NCAA tournaments were canceled in March because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The tournaments were not alone: nearly all sports leagues and sporting events have been suspended or canceled because of COVID-19, putting sports on hold in all corners of the globe. COVID-19 is a pneumonia-like disease caused by a coronavirus, a type of virus that also causes the common cold and other diseases of the upper respiratory system. To date, COVID-19 has killed more than 80,000 people among nearly 1.5 million confirmed cases.

Dodger Stadium sits empty in Los Angeles, California. Baseball stadiums, usually teeming with people at this time of year, are going unused throughout the world as leagues have been suspended or canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Credit: John McCoy/Getty Images

All collegiate and high schools sports in the United States were suspended or canceled because of COVID-19 (the schools were then closed), and Little League Baseball, too, had to put off the start of its season. In professional sports, Major League Baseball, which had begun its annual spring training, canceled all exhibition games on March 12 and indefinitely delayed the start of the regular season. Minor League Baseball shut down, as did baseball leagues in Japan, Mexico, South Korea, and other countries. The National Basketball Association suspended its season on March 11, and basketball leagues in other countries were also shut down. The recently launched XFL football league suspended its first season on March 12, and the fledgling Basketball Africa League also lost its inaugural season, which had been scheduled to start on March 13.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced the postponement of the 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo until 2021. Credit: Pakpoom Phummee/Shutterstock

Major League Soccer and the National Hockey League suspended their seasons in March, and other hockey and soccer leagues around the world were forced to do the same. Rugby and cricket leagues and tournaments were suspended, as were the upcoming Masters Tournament, PGA Championship, U.S. Open, and British Open golf competitions. In tennis, Wimbledon was canceled for the first time since World War II (1939-1945), and the French Open was postponed. The Kentucky Derby horse race and the Indianapolis 500 auto race were postponed, and the Monaco Gran Prix auto race was canceled. (All three races are usually run in May.) Marathons around the world have been canceled or postponed, and athletes of all types will have to wait for the Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo, which were postponed a year until July 2021.

This illustration of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) shows the spikes on the outer surface of the virus that appear as a corona, giving the virus its name. Credit: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of sports continued to be played without fans in attendance, but fears for the safety of athletes quickly led to the canceling of the competitions themselves. Suspended and postponed sports leagues and events have issued optimistic timelines about when they will resume or take place. All timelines, however, depend on the containment or continued spread of COVID-19.

The sports cancellations are part of social distancing, also known as physical distancing, an effort to slow or stop the spread of a contagious disease by limiting contact between people. Social distancing is most effective against illnesses that can be transmitted by coughing or sneezing, direct or indirect physical contact, or through the air. Typical social distancing measures call for the closing of such public places as sports arenas, schools, restaurants, museums, and many offices and stores. They may also call for people to maintain a distance of around 6 feet (2 meters) between them in public places.

June 17, 2019

Last week, on June 12, the St. Louis Blues of the National Hockey League (NHL) downed the Boston Bruins 4-1 to win the team’s first ever Stanley Cup title. The Blues won the best-of-seven final four games to three. Fifty-two years after the team’s debut NHL season (1967-1968), this year’s Blues made the most of an opportunity to change their reputation as an ever-competent team that suffered letdowns in each of its 42 previous playoff runs. In the 2019 Stanley Cup playoffs, the Blues possessed more dazzle, more determination, and more puck-luck than any of its opponents.

Members of the St. Louis Blues celebrate their Stanley Cup victory over the Boston Bruins at TD Garden in Boston, Massachusetts, on June 12, 2019. Credit: © Bruce Bennett, Getty Images

A Blues championship looked rather unlikely early in the NHL season, as the team possessed the league’s worst record as of Jan. 2, 2019. But the team then called up the talented rookie goaltender Jordan Binnington, who helped them to turn things around. The Blues finished the season 45-28-9, good enough for third place in the Central Division of the Western Conference.

In the playoffs, St. Louis overcame the favored Winnipeg, Dallas, and San Jose squads to advance to their first Stanley Cup Final since 1970—when the Bruins swept the Blues for the title. The Blues brought a team of grinders to the final, including forward Pat Maroon, right wing Vladimir Tarasen, and center Ryan O’Reilly, who won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player of the postseason. O’Reilly tallied 8 goals and 15 assists in the playoffs.

Boston enjoyed a very good season, finishing second in the Eastern Conference’s Atlantic Division at 49-24-9. The Bruins took out Toronto, Columbus, and Carolina in the playoffs before meeting St. Louis. In the final, oddsmakers favored Boston, which featured such stars as wing Brad Marchand, center Patrice Bergeron, goaltender Tuukka Rask, and veteran defenseman Zdeno Chara, the team captain.

The Bruins captured game one in Boston, 4-2. The Blues took game two in Boston, 3-2, but the Bruins spoiled the Blues’s St. Louis homecoming with a 7-2 shellacking in game three. The Blues rebounded to win games four (4-2) and five (2-1) for a three games to two series advantage. Boston took away the Blues’ chance to win a title at the Enterprise Center in St. Louis, however, winning game six 5-1. Back in Boston for game seven, St. Louis scored two first period goals for a 2-0 lead, then added two more in the third period for a commanding 4-0 advantage. Boston managed a meaningless goal late in the fourth, but the NHL finally sang the blues as the final horn signaled the end of a long championship draught in St. Louis.

The win for St. Louis continued another title draught, however. No team from Canada—the “land of hockey” and the birthplace of 21 of 30 Blues—has now won the Stanley Cup since the Montreal Canadiens in 1993.

June 13, 2018

Last week, on June 7, the Washington Capitals of the National Hockey League (NHL) stunned the Vegas Golden Knights with a 4-3 come-from-behind victory to win the best-of-seven Stanley Cup Final four games to one. The Capitals scored two goals midway through the third period, erasing a 3-2 deficit along with 44 years of NHL shortcomings. It was the first Stanley Cup win for Washington (D.C.), a team that had enjoyed much regular season success but none in the postseason since entering the NHL in 1974.

Alex Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals raises the Stanley Cup after his team defeated the Vegas Golden Knights to win the Stanley Cup Final at T-Mobile Arena in Paradise, Nevada, on June 7, 2018. Credit: © Jeff Bottari, Getty Images

The Capitals long-awaited title ended the hopes of the upstart Golden Knights, a first-year expansion team that made an improbable run through the playoffs to reach the final. The freshly minted Golden Knights fans showed their appreciation, however, cheering their team off the ice after the final horn ended the season late Thursday at T-Mobile Arena on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada.

Since Washington’s first NHL season in 1974-1975, the Capitals had made just one appearance in the Stanley Cup Final, a demoralizing sweep by the Detroit Red Wings in 1998. In recent years, the Caps, led by star left winger Alex Ovechkin, tantalized their fans by winning 7 of the last 10 division championships. Much to the team’s and its fans’ disappointment, however, they were bounced early from the playoffs each time. This year was different. The Caps roared through the postseason, knocking off the Columbus Blue Jackets and the defending champion Pittsburgh Penguins before outlasting the Tampa Bay Lightning in a hard-fought seven-game Eastern Conference Final.

Ovechkin led the Caps run, and he earned the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player in the playoffs. Ovechkin scored 3 of his playoff-best 15 goals in the final series against Vegas. Centers Evgeny Kuznetsov (20 assists) and Nicklas Backstrom, winger T.J. Oshie, defender John Carlson, and goalie Braden Holtby all played key roles for the Caps in the postseason. Journeyman Devante Smith-Pelly, a fourth-line forward, brought unexpected scoring to his team. He tallied seven playoff goals, including three during the final’s five games.

Compared with long-suffering Capitals fanatics, Golden Knights fans were born with silver (or was it golden?) spoons in their mouths. Vegas compiled the most successful season for a first-year expansion team in NHL history. Vegas almost paired its spoons with a big silver cup following its regular season Pacific Division crown and a rampage during the Western Conference playoffs. Led by centers William Karlsson and Jon Marchessault, wingers David Perron and Reilly Smith, defender Nate Schmidt, and star goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury, the Golden Knights bested the Los Angeles Kings and San Jose Sharks before beating the Winnipeg Jets in the conference final. The Jets playoff crash continued the Stanley Cup drought for Canadian teams. The last team from north of the border to reach the final was the Vancouver Canucks in 2011, and the last Canadian team to win the Stanley Cup was the Montreal Canadiens in 1993—lamentable statistics for hockey’s home country.

Vegas was the first expansion team to reach the Stanley Cup Final in its inaugural season since the St. Louis Blues did it in 1968. Like the Golden Knights, the Blues ran out of magic in the final, where they lost to the Canadiens four games to none.