Set up to be bold, Knights were rewarded

They were set to party Saturday night on the The Strip in Las Vegas. But this one was for the hundreds of thousands of locals, not the millions of tourists.

Six years after debuting, the Golden Knights won the Stanley Cup. The third-best team in the regular season romped its way through the playoffs, outscoring the broken-down Panthers, 24-12, in the Final. The Knights won 9 of 22 playoff games by three or more goals. They earned every moment of the celebration.

Expansion rules pushed them there, and those with eyes on owning NHL teams — groups in Salt Lake City, Atlanta, Houston, and Kansas City, to name a few — have every right to dream of the same.

Beginning with the Vegas draft in 2017 — the same rules applied to Seattle in 2021, and will likely apply for further expansion — existing teams were allowed to protect seven forwards, three defensemen, and one goaltender, or eight skaters and one defenseman. In 2000, when Columbus and Minnesota entered the league, teams could protect nine forwards, five defensemen, and one goalie, or two goalies, three defensemen, and seven forwards.

For the first time in league history, the newcomer could essentially pluck a third-line forward and a top-four defenseman from every team, rather than fringe players left on the scrap heap. Then-Vegas general manager George McPhee gleefully used his leverage to hammer his scrambling peers.

Ironically, the Panthers were the most skittish team that summer. ThenGM Dale Tallon gave away Reilly Smith and a fourth-round pick so McPhee would take Jonathan Marchessault.

The future Conn Smythe winner, coming off a breakout 30-goal season, teamed with Smith and William Karlsson to get Vegas to the Final in Year 1.

The Ducks traded Shea Theodore to Vegas so the Knights would pick Clayton Stoner over the unprotected Josh Manson and Sami Vatanen.

The Wild gave away Alex Tuch, who became a Knights fan favorite and then part of the Jack Eichel trade, and a conditional third-rounder so the Knights would take Erik Haula over Matt Dumba.

The Blue Jackets traded their firstrounder in 2017, a third-rounder in 2019, and David Clarkson’s contract so the Knights would take Karlsson over Josh Anderson or Joonas Korpisalo.

Owner Bill Foley made a promise: playoffs in three years, the Stanley Cup in six. Sure, the Knights had a clean cap sheet, favorable expansion rules, and a player-friendly destination city. But they also took big swings — the Eichel trade, the trade with Ottawa, the signing of Alex Pietrangelo — and kept churning players and coaches until they found the right mix.

They were set up to be bold, acted that way, and were rewarded for it. Other thoughts on the Cup Final:

■ The Bruins tenderized the Panthers. Coach Paul Maurice said in the aftermath of Game 5 that the bulk of his team’s ailments happened in the first round, including the broken foot that Aaron Ekblad played through. Ekblad also separated both of his shoulders and tore an oblique. He missed one game. Brandon Montour had a torn shoulder labrum. Radko Gudas had a high ankle sprain. They kept playing. Most critically, Matthew Tkachuk, who missed Game 5, broke his sternum in Game 3.

“We are going to have a hell of a time making it back to the playoffs next year,” Maurice said.

■ Like that of his brother, Vegas GM Kelly McCrimmon’s name will go on the Cup. Brad McCrimmon, the tough blue liner who broke in with the Bruins before winning the Cup with the Flames in 1989, perished in the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl plane crash in 2011.

■ The NHL does its Cup celebration better than other major sports. Let the commissioner say a few words about the owner, then present the trophy to the players. The guy wearing the “C” should be the focus, not those in the Csuites.

■ Eichel became a Cup champ in his first full season in Vegas, and was arguably the team’s best player in the postseason. Meanwhile, the Sabres’ playoff drought continues. Bruce Cassidy used Patrice Bergeron as a model for Eichel’s development, and it showed — Eichel was everywhere.

■ Eichel wasn’t the only one shoving it to the haters. Phil Kessel, scratched for the final two rounds, was interviewed by a few Toronto reporters on the ice after the clincher. Kessel, via The Hockey News: “Takes me back to my Toronto days. You guys said I couldn’t win, and now I’m a three-time champ. Remember that.” Kessel, an unrestricted free agent this summer, might have played his final game.

■ The Panthers were among the teams that called Cassidy right after he was fired by the Bruins. Moments after finishing off the Panthers, he was reminded that the following day was the one-year anniversary of him signing his Vegas contract.

“I’m gonna celebrate,” he deadpanned, pounding his fist on the table.

A guy who was fired from his first job — in Washington in 2003 by McPhee, who won with him 20 years later — and was turfed by his favorite team, turned around and joined the exclusive club of Stanley Cup champs.

It’s a great story — one that plays well everywhere outside of Boston.

Let go partly because his firm hand had worn on some of the Bruins, Cassidy pushed the right buttons in Vegas. “He brought an intensity to our locker room that maybe we needed,” Stone told TNT’s Darren Pang after Game 5.

I have a picture in my phone from Jan. 12, 2019. It is a picture of a picture, actually, that was hanging on the wall outside the cafeteria at ScotiaBank Arena in Toronto. Cassidy and I were chatting in the hall pregame, and he stopped when it caught his eye.

The picture is of Punch Imlach, the Maple Leafs’ coach, after winning the Stanley Cup in 1967. The trophy, about half of its inscription space blank, sits at his feet, which are propped up on a desk. Wearing a shirt and tie, Imlach is smiling and taking a sip of bubbly. On the chalkboard behind him, he has written in fancy cursive, “No Practice Tomorrow.”

It’s a black-and-white vision of coaching bliss. Cassidy can go ahead and re-create it, in full color.