Jonathan Marchessault and Reilly Smith: time for revenge against the Panthers

The Stanley Cup Final has not yet begun. In fact, we’ll have to wait another sixty hours (until Saturday night) to see the first skate.

It’s a long time, I know.

The interesting thing about the final is that both teams are made up of a majority of Canadian players. In fact, even though it’s a match-up between two American teams, Canada is well represented.

No fewer than 29 Canadians will be playing… against just seven Americans. That’s more than four times as many.

What’s also interesting is that two of the Golden Knights’ Canadian players will be under the microscope during this series: Reilly Smith and Jonathan Marchessault.

And why? Because it’s against the Panthers.

It will be remembered that in 2017, when the NHL expansion draft took place, the Vegas Golden Knights did some good business with a few teams.

The teams learned from their mistakes with Seattle.

But nothing was as impressive as seeing the club trade Reilly Smith to Vegas in order to convince the Knights’ staff to take Quebecer Jonathan Marchessault. We’re talking about two of the six remaining players from the Knights’ original edition.

Today, both are important faces in Vegas and will try to make their former club pay cash for their departure.

Since arriving in Vegas, Smith has collected 286 poitns in the regular season. This year, he has 56 points, which brings him close to his 60-point haul in 2017-2018, the year of the first Finals.

To this, we add 63 points in the playoffs since the franchise’s arrival in the NHL. This places him first in the franchise’s history for points in the playoffs.

In fact, he’s tied for first with – oh yes – Jonathan Marchessault. The latter has 348 points in six seasons in Vegas, putting him at the top of the franchise’s all-time scoring charts.

Smith sits third, behind William Karlsson (307 points). Yes, the Panthers have been had.

In gusto

– Brad Treliving is happy with his new position.

– A name to watch in Pittsburgh.

– It would be chaos.

– The CH alumnus becomes an assistant coach.

– Too bad.