Was this the worst Stanley Cup game winning Final ever??

John Forslund is the voice of the Seattle Kraken. He is my friend.

I have his phone number. What a mistake he made a long time ago. And he joins us on the Adam Gold Show to talk about as one-sided a Stanley Cup Finals as I can ever remember. At least in my adult life, I remember some Islanders Stanley Cup Finals back in the day that were one-sided. But that was so long ago, I don't even remember which team they beat that year. So what's your take on 26 to 12 on aggregate, 9 to 3 last night?

Well, you bring up these memories, right? So I can remember the Islanders Vancouver Stanley Cup Final and maybe in the early 80s, 82 I believe, maybe that one resembles this one because Vancouver kind of came out of nowhere out of the west at that time. The Islanders were dynasty team, but I don't recall certainly in my career, Adam, and maybe my lifetime, anything like this where it's not really competitive, pretty one-sided.

Yes, Florida wins a game in overtime, but there wasn't anything compelling about it either other than the injuries that continue to be a big story, which is always the case in any playoff round. And most importantly to Matthew Kuchuk, but that seemed to be the most compelling thing to come out of this, but it cannot detract away from the season Vegas had and the job Bruce Cassidy did as their coach and a remarkable story of players who pushed the right way to play a strong defensive mindset in front of their fourth goalie and got it done. So that in itself is a great story and their first ever Stanley Cup and all of that.

But when you take it off the strip, the Vegas strip, there isn't much there. Before we get to the year six and really go back to year one and what they did in the expansion draft, because I think that's the biggest story about this entire thing, is how that team was constructed basically on day one. Because the nuts and bolts of that team, yes, they added Stone and they added Eichel, although the Eichel part of this is because of what they did in on day one.

Just quickly about the series itself. I thought in game one, Florida showed tremendous gaps in their defensive core that they just could not overcome. Unlike Carolina, who could not get to the middle of the ice, Vegas basically lived in the middle of the ice on Florida and that proved to be the undoing. Yeah, you know, the neutral zone is something you talk about. It's like into the line of scrimmage in football and you certainly have to control that. But I think you're right in terms of each attacking zone and what happened there. And right down the middle, right down the slot, the royal road, some people call it defensively, Vegas controlled that. Offensively, they were free to roam and that happened right out of the chute. And I remember the same thing watching game one saying, wow, if this doesn't change, this is going to be short work here for the, for the Vegas Golden Knights.

And it was, and, and by and large, that's their DNA. I get a chance to see them a great deal. Obviously working in Seattle, watch a lot of Western conference games to win in the West. You have to grind. You have to be defensively sound.

You have to be positional. You have to really be strong in those areas and in the interior of the ice, the East is different. The East might have more highly skilled parity.

A little more flash. The teams copy each other. And maybe what has happened here over time is the Eastern teams have copied each other to a fault and the Western teams haven't changed much over time. They recognize because of scheduling and travel, they have to play that way.

So, um, so it's a tougher brand and I don't mean physical either. I mean, it's just a tougher brand of hockey to get the ice you need to score and to keep players away from the ice that they need to score from if you're on, on the defensive side of things. And I really believe that's what happened because if you're going to get to Aidan Hill and, and say that, you know, no matter what happened to Bob in this series, Sergei Bobrovsky, but if you're going to get to Aidan Hill and say, well, he's going to out-goal 10 Sergei Bobrovsky, that's not possible, but Aidan Hill. And the fact that they use five goalies this season, and no matter who it was looked the same speaks to Vegas as team game.

And that's been in place all season. And certainly from the beginning of this series, John Forslund, voice of the Seattle Kraken, you will see the Vegas Golden Knights in the winter classic next year. That is, that should be an absolute blast. There'll be, I assume they'll be wearing throwback Seattle and Vegas. I'm just kidding.

That will be, I just think it'll be fun to watch that. I want to go back to the construction of this team. Cause again, I think that's the story six years ago, it was the summer of right before the draft in 2017, William Carrier. He was one of like the fourth or fifth pick in the expansion draft. Jonathan Marchisot.

And if it, who was the, the con smith winner. And if it wasn't so bad, I think that was from Florida that you left Jonathan Marchisot unprotected. You made the deal. If you're Florida to say, Hey, Vegas, you take Jonathan Marchisot and we'll send you Riley Smith, which unbelievable Braden McNabb, William Carlson, Shea Theodore was a throw in by Anaheim. So they could protect somebody else. Alex Tuck was, uh, they, a throw in from Minnesota. So they could, so Vegas would take, uh, our old friend Eric Halla and Alex Tuck became Jack Eichel basically day one, they constructed this team. They did. And they did it in a situation that no other expansion team had in terms of rules. Uh, the commissioner had decided, you know, when you're going to lay down the money you need to in today's world to get an expansion franchise, then you are entitled to a better roster.

So very, very smart. And I think a lot of this also had to do with the market. And there's no question. If, uh, they were to be honest, they being a league, we're honest with all of us, which they don't have to be.

Um, there's no question. They wanted that market to hit the ground right away. Why wouldn't you?

Right? So they wanted Vegas to be successful. So the league got their wish. The general managers were getting into a cycle right now, back in 2017, where yes, they had lived with the salary cap for a while, but I don't think anybody understood that many of these players that were third line players at best or second pairing, maybe third pairing, most of them defensemen, uh, aside from Marc Andre Flurry, who was a bonafide superstar, but aside from that, they were able to pick the litter of rosters that were very close to some of the other players, not star power, but William Carlson in the first season scored 41 goals. He was having a hard time getting in Columbus's lineup and he was a cast off from Anaheim early in his career. So all these players and Marsha, so an undrafted player wins the MVP last night was a guy that had kicked around Florida and Tampa Bay before, you know, striking gold, pardon the pun, where he is. So, I mean, so this is, this is a, uh, a thing that I think was set a little bit by design.

Then the, uh, the chemical equation got to work right away. They had the horrible tragedy, the smash shootings in Vegas, uh, opening night was a rallying point for the city, for the team. The team was very active in the community. They fell in love with that team.

It was a tough place for the opponents to come in, uh, mostly because most of the opponents had the old Vegas flu and came in there and enjoy themselves and then realize they're up against a really good team. And then the playoffs started and it was a magical run, but since then, they've been chasing their tail. They've been mortgaging a lot of their future to continue to be in the now they've gone through three coaches in six years. Um, and, and, and this is it.

And they, they get the chalice, the owner predicted. And so, okay, they've accomplished that goal and now moving forward, we'll see. But the key here, and I work for a team now that's going to have to try and keep up with this again. Uh, the Seattle cracking had a magical season and only their second year, but now that this has happened, like the first season, um, you know, people and fans are going to expect the cracking to make a jump and they're going to have to, I think it's doable in today's NHL. I think it is doable to, to, to stay relevant and be really, really competitive once you're there. And that's a trick for a lot of teams. Yeah. We'll see basically, you know, the, because you play all the way into, you know, mid June, you see before it all gets cranked up again, we're only about two and a half months away from training camp.

That is amazing, right? Only football has an off season that's significantly longer than the regular season. The hockey, which probably needs a longer off season for a lot of these guys to recover.

They don't have it. We all saw, we see the injuries, Aaron Eckblad, uh, broken foot, uh, torn oblique, two separated shoulders, Matthew Kachuk playing with a fractured sternum. I mean, these guys are going to need a long time to recover from all of that.

But I agree. I think, I think there's a lot of good with what you get, what you guys have going up in Seattle, uh, and a bonafide star on the rise in Matty Beneers. Uh, Vegas is a little bit older team and they did. They, they sent some young players and some draft capital away to get a Jack Eichel and they paid a lot of money to get Mark Stone. So we'll see how this all shakes out, but they got a Stanley cup and that buys you a lot of, uh, I guess a lot of leeway with your fans. It does. So the, you know, the, this will, it buys you plenty of time, you know, and so they'll take it. And he's a bill Foley is a demanding owner.

Most of them are. Um, but you know what? He, he said this would happen. Everybody knew what did, what is this guy talking about? You know, playoffs and three cup and six.

He said that on day one, when he was awarded the franchise, um, but he is right. And how they got there, it's probably just a coincidence in many ways, but once they got to the framework of a, a winning team gave the market a taste of winning, they were able to keep up with it. The trick for them now is down the road. Uh, you know, a lot of people talk about their system.

There isn't, there isn't a lot there. Um, so it'd be interesting to see, you know, where are they going years to come, but once you win a Stanley cup, it bodes well for your business. It bodes well for your fan base to just kind of accept it and relish in it for a few years before they get antsy again.

So good for them. Uh, and I'm happy for Bruce Cassidy, who, you know, on the, uh, anniversary of his departure from one team, he wins the Stanley cup and he's always been a hell of a coach. Oh, he is a dynamite coach. Uh, John Forslund, you are the best enjoy a summer vacation. You get, you get a summer vacation, sir. And I will talk to you when you get back down here into the lower 48. Oh, okay.

We will. That's a date and I'll keep my number the same. I contemplated, uh, changing it. I understand. I'll keep it the same. I have people, I have ways. All right, John, take care. Talk to you later, Adam.

Bye. John is awesome. The whole Vegas golden Knights ascension to, from a startup to where they are today is just remarkable. And they have been legitimately good right from the get-go.

No joke. I mean, can you really chalk up the shooting in Vegas to, it certainly galvanized the team, but I don't think it made the team better than it actually was. That was a good team.

Yeah. Legitimately good team. And I mean, there was a little bit of a freak run through the West, but it was a very good team and they have, they have just continued to build and they have not been afraid. The only, my only criticism really of the hurricanes and because the hurricanes five years in a row have been tremendous, right?

My only criticism of the way Carolina does business is that it's been, it's been kind of a slow build and they haven't necessarily gone for it. So think about the three players that Vegas added over the last few years, three players start on the backend, Alex Patrangelo, one of the best defensemen in the world, right? He's no longer, I think a top 10 NHL defensive, but he's probably on the fringe of that, but they signed him as a free agent in the, what?

When Carolina and St. Louis each went from worst to, not first, but worst of the playoffs in 18, 19, of course the blues won the Stanley cup that year beating Boston. They signed Alex Patrangelo off that team in the off season. That was pretty bold. They went out and got Mark Stone at the deadline.

That turned out to be good. I think that was the, I don't think it was the following year, I remember exactly when it was, but I mean, that was a bold move, right? And then they make the trade for Jack Eichel. I mean, they have legitimately gone for it. I'm not suggesting that Carolina needs to do things like that, but they haven't done anything like that. And maybe this will be the year where if, whether they see the need or an opportunity, maybe this will be the year that they try to strike.

Hope so. So the window isn't closing if you keep re-signing your own players. And according to Tom Dundon, the priority is their best player. That's their best player.