A DIFFERENT KIND OF CHASE - WHY THIS STANLEY CUP FINAL OFFERS SOMETHING EXTRA THAN IN YEARS PAST

Mario Russo

This year’s Stanley Cup Final should be one of most highly-anticipated championship matchups of its time.

Not because Lord Stanley’s trophy is guaranteed to find a brand new home for the summer, or due to the fact that not one, but two low-tier hockey markets will enter the drawn-out ‘boom’ of their timelines.

This matchup isn't even the most glorifying of a head-to-head matchup involving its star players, with Matthew Tkachuk being the lonesome figure in the series nominated for an award (The Hart Memorial Trophy) at the end of the NHL season.

Yet despite all this, there still remains a constant tension within the hockey world heading into game one between the Panthers and the Golden Knights - a sense of anticipation yet to be seen for quite some time.

The winner of this series will go down in the record books as something more than just a first-time Stanley Cup winner. They will be forever idolized, studied and replicated for their neglective behavior both on and off the ice, and prove once and for all that practicing the latter is the real key to success in hockey’s modern age.

Both teams have mastered the ability to throw up the criticism blinders at some point this season, and have effortlessly transitioned the odds against them to make headway in their respective postseason campaigns.

The Panthers entered the first round of the playoffs with an eight-seed ranking and a dead-last attitude. The two have made out to be a lethal combination throughout the postseason and have racked up victims as a result of its potent ‘nothing to lose’ philosophy.

The 2022 President’s Trophy winners were expected to be in the Stanley Cup Finals from the get go this season, no surprise given the Panthers’ revamped core and added depth on both ends of the ice.

Yet less than a month's worth of games into the regular season, both the vibe and expectations that lingered in the preseason drastically plummeted in South Florida. No longer were the Cats anticipated to surf into the postseason picture, but rather scratch and claw their way towards a consecutive shot at the league title - a feat they successfully accomplished over the last several months.

As far as expectations go, quite the opposite stemmed from the Vegas Golden Knights throughout their franchise-best 111 point season. After wrapping up a struggling offseason that witnessed a complete makeover between the pipes and the loss of team cornerstone Max Paciorrety, a substantial step back was anticipated from the Golden Knight’s camp.

Opening up the 2023 season with questions surrounding both the roster strength and the limits of a new coach, many pegged the Golden Knights as one of the eight teams in the Western Conference sitting on the outside looking in once the league’s playoff picture solidified.

Nobody predicted the mid-season stride that former second overall pick Jack Eichel would harness and never let go of. Very few believed a goalie tandem consisting of two glorified second-stringers in Adin Hill and Laurent Broissoit would manage to hold any water, yet they’ve spent the lion’s share of these playoffs delivering fatal blows to their opposition without failure.

The presumption around both the Panthers and the Golden Knights could not have aged any poorly heading into the 2023 Stanley Cup Final. Despite both squad’s being at the helm of some of the league’s worst misjudgments this season, it is through the process of redefining expectations that makes this series a historic and timeless clash.

Perhaps one that was nearly ten months in the making. One, that amidst all its south predictions, now resembles the unthinkable. The unforeseen.

The proof to prevail as the backdrop of uncertainty sets to swallow you whole.

This is the identity of 2023’s Stanley Cup Final. The silencing of the doubters and self-proclaimed ‘know it all’s’ around the league. The series where expectations are laid to rest, burned and abandoned in the dust.

Both teams have defied expectations throughout numerous parts of the season, and will be tasked with sinking the final dagger into those assumptions over the next two weeks. Entertainment will be at an all-time high, much different than in years past. There’s something extra on the line for the series’ eventual winner.

The chase for the last laugh.