Listen to this articleWorld News, June 14, 2023. Mark Stone scores a hat trick | Mark Stone, right wing for the Vegas Golden Knights, finished the Stanley Cup Finals with a hat trick to help the team wrap off the series against Florida with a 9-3 victory Tuesday. Stone opened the scoring in the game with a short-handed goal, then added another in an even-strength situation before completing his third hat trick in a Stanley Cup-clinching game with an empty-netter.
The Golden Knights captain was a key offensive spark throughout the Finals, scoring five goals and recording nine points in five games. During the team’s run to the championship, Stone had 24 points in 22 games.
Mark Stone scores a hat trick
Stone’s leadership in probably the biggest game of his life resulted in something unprecedented in recent memory. Stone became the first NHL player to score a hat trick in the final series since Peter Forsberg did so for the Colorado Avalanche in Game 2 of the 1995-96 final in the final game of the 2023 Stanley Cup playoffs.
At the time, Stone was four years old. In that game, the Avalanche defeated the Florida Panthers 8-1 and went on to win the Stanley Cup in four games. The 2022-23 Panthers added two more goals and one more win in the series against the Golden Knights on Tuesday, but Vegas sealed the deal with a 9-3 triumph.
So, who else joins Stone as the only NHL players to score a hat trick in their team’s championship win? To do so, we must go back 103 years to the first time it occurred.
Jack Darragh was born in Ottawa in 1890 and spent his whole six-year NHL career with the founding Senators. He scored at least one point a game in each of his first four seasons, including his third, the 1919-20 season. In 23 games that season, he set a career high with 23 goals and 37 points.
The Senators represented the NHL in the best-of-five Stanley Cup final against the Pacific Coast Hockey Association champions, the Seattle Metropolitans. The Senators won Games 1 and 2, but they blew their series advantage when Seattle forced a fifth-and-decided game on April 1, 1920.
Seattle and Ottawa traded goals in the first period, and the score remained 1-1 entering the third. Then the hometown hero went on the board. Darragh scored his third, fourth, and fifth goals of the series in the last period, as the Senators scored five goals. That year, the Senators won their first Stanley Cup as an NHL team, and they went on to win two more with Darragh in 1921 and 1923. But what about the intervening year?
Babe Dye was a Toronto St. Pat’s forward and goal-scoring machine. With 31 goals in 24 games, he tied Punch Broadbent of the original Senators for the league lead in the 1921-22 regular season. The two clubs met in the NHL championship series, with Toronto winning and moving on to meet the Vancouver Millionaires of the PCHA in another best-of-five series for the Stanley Cup. It, too, advanced to a fifth game.
Dye scored three minutes into the decisive game versus the Millionaires. He made it 2-0 Toronto a minute and 20 seconds later. Corb Denneny scored in the second period to make it 3-0, but Dye completed the hat trick in the third period with his 10th goal of the playoffs. Just for fun, he added a fourth seven minutes later in St. Pat’s final 5-1 victory. That was Dye’s sole Stanley Cup victory.
His nine goals in the championship game tied him with Cyclone Taylor (1917-18) and Frank Foyston (1918-19) for the most in the previous series. Dye had 203 goals and 252 points in 272 regular-season NHL games. Eight years after his death, he was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.
