Bruce Cassidy’s face turned red as he tried to scream at his team over one of the loudest crowds in T-Mobile Arena history during Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final on June 5.
The Vegas Golden Knights had taken a 4-0 lead over the Florida Panthers minutes earlier, but this was not the look of a coach in the midst of a victory that would take his franchise closer to a championship than it had ever been before. Cassidy appeared generally alarmed, concerned that his players had gotten lost in the emotion of the moment and desperately attempting to steer them back on course.
“There were some parts there where we lost our competitive edge for some shifts,” Cassidy said during his postgame news conference later in the night. “You’ve got to be real careful this time of the year. This is not a January game where a team is moving on to their next opponent and so are we. We talked about that in between periods.”
The Golden Knights gave up a goal 14 seconds into the third period but recovered to outscore the Panthers for a fourth consecutive period overall in the series. A 7-2 victory gave Vegas a 2-0 series lead heading to Sunrise, Florida, for Game 3 against the Panthers on June 8.
Still, Cassidy’s near-panic despite what looked like a commanding lead felt emblematic of the Golden Knights’ whole current playoff run. Vegas has fought against feeling comfortable, and tried to maintain a mentality that nothing will be good enough until it hoists the Stanley Cup.
The team declined to touch the Clarence S. Campbell Bowl awarded for winning the Western Conference, unlike when they won it the first time in 2018. After beating the Panthers 5-2 in Game 1 of this Cup Final, forward Jonathan Marchessault took borderline offense to a reporter in the locker room asking him how it felt to win a Stanley Cup Final game.
He had done that before, Marchessault said, in reference to 2018’s Game 1 win over the Washington Capitals, but that series didn’t turn out the way he wanted, with the Golden Knights losing in five games. No one dared to ask Marchessault a similar question in a postgame news conference after Game 2, but he still repeated the same message he has shared all postseason.
“We’ve done a great job so far, but we’re still pretty far from our goal,” he said.
The path for a team down 2-0 getting back into a best-of-seven championship series is pretty well established. The trailing team must come out scorching in Game 3 with a desperation its opponent cannot match, build from there and prolong the series.
The Golden Knights seem unlikely to succumb to that fate. That’s not to say that they can’t lose Game 3, or even the series; just that, if they do so, complacency won’t be a contributing factor.
Vegas is too hungry, and Cassidy has it too locked in, because of what has happened in the past. Between the Cup Final to end the Golden Knights’ inaugural season, a painful loss to San Jose in Round 1 the following year and two series upset defeats in the Western Conference Final in 2020 and ’21, they’re keenly aware of the consequences of even briefly losing focus.
“It’s unfinished business for a lot of guys,” Cassidy said hours before Game 1. “I put myself in that category.”
Perhaps Cassidy’s drive for Cup redemption is part of the reason why he has fit so well with the Golden Knights in his first year as coach. His previous disappointment didn’t come behind the Vegas bench, but it stung just as much when his Boston Bruins’ teams fell short in the playoffs in each of the past six years.
Cassidy’s best Boston squad held a 2-1 lead in the 2019 Cup Final before getting upset by the St. Louis Blues in seven games. The coach has admitted to thinking about the defeat frequently in the years since.
Cassidy says he’s confident he did all he could schematically to give the Bruins the best chance to win, but he wonders if he handled the increased outside obligations during the series as well as he could have. Should he have been more stringent about keeping Boston on its normal routine? And did he truly realize how rarely championship opportunities present themselves?
“I think the first time around I [had] only [been] at it [in Boston] for three years, and it was like, ‘Wow, the Stanley Cup Final, it’s kinda cool,’” Cassidy reflected. “Now, I’ve been to the Stanley Cup Final, and it’s time to win it.
“I’m not saying I wasn’t prepared or trying to win it last time. I just think you have a different mindset once you go through the whole process, when you get near the top of the hill but not quite to the top.”
Cassidy’s Vegas players know that feeling, too. It would be easy for them to point out that every season features a different team, separating this year’s run from past attempts at the Cup. But players like Marchessault haven’t given that excuse any credence.
The Golden Knights have accomplished almost everything in their first six seasons, including an NHL-leading 12 playoff series wins, but there’s a void that will only grow bigger if they can’t defeat the Panthers two more times.
Hockey can be so crazy and unpredictable, it would be a mistake to discount the chances of a comeback. But Florida will have it to pry it away from the Golden Knights, whose grip is hardened after years of painful strengthening.
“Unfinished business is a good way to put it,” defenseman Zach Whitecloud said. “Everyone who follows this team knows we’ve come into this season with a chip on our shoulder and with something to prove not only to ourselves but to our fanbase and the rest of the league.”
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