There are 3,489 names engraved on the 3-foot, 35-pound silver chalice Sir Frederick Arthur Stanley, Lord Stanley of Preston and son of the 14th Earl of Derby, once gave out to the Canada’s top amateur team.
The Golden Knights can add a few more Tuesday night.
The Stanley Cup will be in the building for Game 5 of the Knights’ series with the Florida Panthers at 5 p.m. at T-Mobile Arena, with a chance for a trophy ceremony at night’s end. The Panthers, down 3-1 in the series, will be eliminated with a loss.
The Knights, in their sixth season as a franchise, can finish off their first championship in front of their home fans and etch themselves into hockey history.
“We’re aware of what’s at stake and how big a game this is for guys as individuals, the organization, the city, all those things,” coach Bruce Cassidy said. “But it’s what we play for, so we’re ready for it.”
Defenseman Alec Martinez, a two-time Cup winner, said it’s only human for the Knights’ minds to wander knowing what one more win could mean.
The key is to fight that. Stay present and focus on what needs to happen period by period, shift by shift to defeat Florida one last time.
It’s not like the last two games have been easy for the Knights. The Panthers rallied for a 3-2 overtime win in Game 3 and suffered a narrow 3-2 loss in Game 4.
Florida has also found a way out of difficult situations before. It overcame a 3-1 deficit earlier this postseason in the first round against the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Boston Bruins.
“It’s never over until it’s over,” right wing Jonathan Marchessault said. “They’re a desperate team. They’ve been resilient in a lot of games. It’s going to be a hard task for us.”
The Panthers will try to stage another series comeback with whatever fight they can muster.
What they have left in the tank remains to be seen. Leading scorer Matthew Tkachuk didn’t play for more than a 10-minute stretch in the third period of Game 4. Tkachuk appeared to suffer an injury after taking a hard hit from right wing Keegan Kolesar in Game 3 and didn’t practice Monday. Florida coach Paul Maurice wouldn’t reveal Tkachuk’s status for Game 5.
Top-line right wing Anthony Duclair also didn’t play the first eight minutes of the third period in Game 4 for undisclosed reasons, and captain Aleksander Barkov’s ice time was limited in the first after he suffered a lower-body injury in the third round.
Both practiced Monday. Whether either is close to 100 percent is a different question.
“You draw on your routine from the last time, your last experience with it,” Maurice said of trailing 3-1. “There is in some ways an advantage to the team at times that’s down 3-1 in terms of the freedom mentally that it can play with. At the same time, you’re down 3-1 for a reason so clearly the other team has been good. But we have some experience with this, and we’ll draw on it.”
The Knights have knowledge of their own they can lean on as well.
They have six former Cup winners in their locker room. They have six original members of the team who witnessed the trophy getting handed out to another team at T-Mobile Arena in 2018. This group’s focus and determination starts with them.
The players all want to experience the euphoria of victory in front of their home fans. They know the building will be rocking like never before. It’s on them to focus, finish the job and get hockey’s hallowed hardware out of its case.
“If you can’t buy into tomorrow’s game, it’d be tough to buy into any game,” goaltender Adin Hill said. “It’s just sticking to the game plan and what’s made us successful all season. If we do that, we’ll win.”
Knights at Panthers, Game 5 (5 p.m.)
TV: TNT, truTV
Radio: KKGK (98.9 FM, 1340 AM)
Line: Knights -178, total 5½
Knights’ projected lineup:
Ivan Barbashev — Jack Eichel — Jonathan Marchessault
Reilly Smith — William Karlsson — Nicolas Roy
Michael Amadio — Chandler Stephenson — Mark Stone
William Carrier — Brett Howden — Keegan Kolesar
Alec Martinez — Alex Pietrangelo
Brayden McNabb — Shea Theodore
Nic Hague — Zach Whitecloud
Panthers’ projected lineup:
Carter Verhaeghe — Aleksander Barkov — Anthony Duclair
Nick Cousins — Sam Bennett — Matthew Tkachuk
Ryan Lomberg — Anton Lundell — Sam Reinhart
Colin White — Eric Staal — Zac Dalpe
Gustav Forsling — Aaron Ekblad
Marc Staal — Brandon Montour
Josh Mahura — Radko Gudas
This content was originally published here.