Stanley Cup Final: Lapsed fan's guide to Panthers-Knights - ESPN

The 2023 Stanley Cup Final begins with Game 1 between the Vegas Golden Knights and Florida Panthers on Saturday night.

As a service to those fans who haven't been following every shot, save and overtime thriller of the 2023 NHL postseason, here is the lapsed fan's guide to the Stanley Cup Final — a quick primer on the conference champs, how they got here and what to look out for in the series.

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The Panthers last played for the Stanley Cup in 1996, the third year of their existence, when they were swept by the Colorado Avalanche.

The Golden Knights made the Stanley Cup Final in the first season of their existence, losing to the Washington Capitals in 2018.

On the ice, not really. The Golden Knights are 6-3-1 against Florida all-time, including 5-0 in Vegas. Off the ice, they do have one unique connection. During the 2017 expansion draft, then-Panthers GM Dale Tallon exposed forward Jonathan Marchessault, who was coming off a 30-goal season. That was enticement for the Golden Knights to then trade for forward Reilly Smith, whose five-year contract extension was set to kick in that season for Florida.

It would go down as one of the biggest blunders of the expansion draft. Marchessault and Smith became foundational players for Vegas and remain on the team to this day. Marchessault is their second-leading scorer in the playoffs and has scored 348 points, including 150 goals, in 432 games with Vegas.

The team couldn't repeat its results from last season, dropping 30 points in the standings and needing a Pittsburgh Penguins collapse at the end of the season to secure the final wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference. Their reward: a first-round