Why a Vegas-Florida final should have everybody excited

The hockey promises to be compelling, but what should have hockey fans intrigued about this Stanley Cup is how both teams got there and whether or not they will inspire copy cats

Bill Zito was not a recycled GM (see what we did there?), nor was Kelly McCrimmon. Perhaps that’s why they’ve been so quick to make the earth-shaking moves that have propelled their teams to the Stanley Cup final.

If you have an aversion to Sun Belt franchises, you’re probably not so jazzed about the Stanley Cup final in 2023. In fact, you probably tuned out after the second round of the playoffs, which doesn’t make a lot of sense because it’s a documented fact that the Vegas Golden Knights have, like, 500 Canadians on their team. Seriously, though, of the 20 guys who suited up for the Former Misfits™ in Game 6 of the Western Conference final, 15 of them (or 75 percent) were born north of the 49th parallel. That’s kinds of nuts in today’s NHL.

And the Florida Panthers had 11 Canadians on their roster for their clinching game in the Eastern Conference final, so this year is actually pretty Canada-centric, except for the lack of a Canadian team actually playing in it. Sorry, eh.

But if you’re a fan of pace and excitement, GMs with stones of steel, off-ice intrigue and blockbuster trades – and whom among us isn’t? - the championship series between the Golden Knights and Panthers represents what Panthers coach Paul Maurice would refer to as, “hockey porn.”

Let’s start with the way the Panthers and Golden Knights actually play the game. They do so with incredible pace and puck pursuit. They really like to have the puck and do some amazing things with it, but aren’t afraid to make plays that might result in them losing it because they’re good at getting it back. Both teams have a ton of big-moment players who are not the least bit afraid of the pressure of overtime and close games. And they both can play punishing, big-boy hockey if that’s what is required.

But it’s much, much more than that. When you look at how both the Panthers and Golden Knights are constructed, and how each of them responded to the abject disappointment they experienced, the fact that they’re meeting in the Stanley Cup final should have you pretty stoked. And with the NHL being the copy-cat league that it is, who knows how many dominoes they’ll set in motion? (I mean, the Panthers have already irrevocably changed the course of the Toronto Maple Leafs by disposing of them in five games in the second round, begging the question: Is it possible all of this front-office drama in Toronto was the result of an overreaction?)

As hockey fans, we can only dream that teams respond to down years the way Vegas GM Kelly McCrimmon and Panthers counterpart Bill Zito did. McCrimmon, identifying that the Golden Knights needed to be stronger up the middle and on the blueline to contend, signed defenceman Alex Pietrangelo prior to the 2020-21 season, then traded for Jack Eichel a little more than a year later. When it didn’t work out as planned and the Golden Knights failed to make the playoffs last season, McCrimmon fired coach Peter DeBoer and replaced him with Bruce Cassidy.

Zito, on the other hand, had a roster that had wildly underachieved in the playoffs after winning the Presidents’ Trophy as the best regular-season team in 2021-22. After making a dizzying array of moves at the trade deadline, then watching his team get swept by Tampa in Round 2, Zito fired his coach as well. But he also swung for the fences when he found out Matthew Tkachuk had no future in Calgary and traded his top scorer, a top-pairing defenceman, a decent NHL prospect and a first-round pick in 2025 for Matthew Tkachuk, who rewarded him by dragging the Panthers into the playoffs and through the first round. Regardless of the Monday morning quarterbacks who are vilifying Brad Treliving for the deal, it was a massive haul.

The common theme here is that both GMs were not the least bit reticent to make seismic moves that carried a certain amount of risk. Don’t forget that Eichel had come to the Golden Knights as the first player in history to ever have an artificial disc replacement. And in the case of Zito acquiring Tkachuk, he had just been burned by his trade deadline acquisitions and was still willing give up a player who had scored 115 points. Let’s pump the brakes on referring to Tkachuk and Eichel as NHL superstars for the moment, because the definition of that way-overused word is too broad. Neither one is a superstar yet, but each of them has the potential to become one.

There is no template for building a championship team. The Detroit Red Wings resisted the urge to blow things up after a couple of early playoff exits and they were rewarded with a Stanley Cup in 2008 and came within one goal of winning another in 2009. Sometimes, these things require patience and tinkering. Others times, they need to be shaken to the core.

Both McCrimmon and Zito recognized that the latter was required and went out and did it. Of course, it seems to be firmly embedded in their DNA to act rather than ruminate. And that actually doesn’t make them any better or worse than a lot of hockey executives, but it will result in one of them lifting the Stanley Cup over his head after the final. It may or may not inspire others to be as bold as they were, but I’m not sure how you can look at the success of these two teams as a rival GM and not at least seriously contemplate making an earth-shaking move, or a series of them. And that’s part of what makes the game so much fun.

PREDICTION: Vegas in 6