The Florida Panthers beat the Edmonton Oilers to win the Stanley Cup for the first time in franchise history.
Carter Verhaeghe and Sam Reinhart scored for the Panthers, either side of Mattias Janmark’s effort, to seal a 2-1 victory and a 4-3 series victory.
The Oilers trailed 3-0 in the series, but fought back to force a decisive game.
“I’ve been chasing this for a long time,” Florida coach Paul Maurice said.
“It was perfect in Florida Panther style – nothing is easy. Nothing is easy for us.”
The Oilers were hoping to become just the second team in NHL history to overcome a 3-0 deficit to win the Stanley Cup.
Florida had home court advantage in the seventh and final game of the series and it took Verhaeghe just four minutes and 27 seconds to score.
The Canadian forward met Evan Rodrigues’ shot past Oilers goalie Stuart Skinner.
Janmark equalized for the visitors when he received a pass from Cody Ceci before finishing calmly.
Reinhart came up with the winning goal in the second period, moments after the Oilers saw an attempt hit at the goal line.
“They say this is the hardest trophy to win in sport, and you don’t realize how difficult it is until you get it,” said Rodrigues.
“But going into the seventh game, we took the pressure off and we did it the hard way. But it was a perfect result.”
