Golden Knights’ Mark Stone drops bar on not touching trophy after Avalanche sweep

The Vegas Golden Knights didn’t touch the Clarence S. Campbell Bowl in 2023 after winning the Western Conference, and they went on to capture their first Stanley Cup in franchise history.

It only made sense for the 2025-26 iteration of the team to follow the same script after sweeping the Colorado Avalanche in the West Final on Tuesday night, completing the job with a 2-1 victory at T-Mobile Arena.

Knights captain Mark Stone didn’t want to touch the trophy, and he made that abundantly clear when talking to media afterwards, including the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s Danny Webster.

“Our ultimate goal is to win the other one.”

The Golden Knights do not touch the Clarence S. Campbell Bowl. pic.twitter.com/cxXMMLleJE

— Danny Webster (@DannyWebster21) May 27, 2026

The Golden Knights came into the series as heavy underdogs against the President’s Trophy-winning Avalanche, who had just swept the Los Angeles Kings before beating the Minnesota Wild in five games.

Vegas changed the narrative completely, winning all four contests and returning to hockey’s ultimate series for the third time in nine years of existence.

The Golden Knights have now reached at least the conference final six times in nine campaigns, an incredible run of sustained success for one of the NHL’s newest franchises.

“It was probably one of our better games from start to finish,” said Cole Smith, who scored the series-winning goal, per NHL.com’s Paul Delos Santos. “Other games in the series we’ve had little lulls where they’ve taken over, and tonight we stuck with it for pretty much the whole game. It was a really good game for us.”

It took the Knights six games to beat the Utah Mammoth in Round 1, and the same to dispatch the Anaheim Ducks in Round 2. But nobody saw this coming: a tidy four-game sweep against the league’s top regular season team.

“I consider the first three rounds to be playoffs,” said head coach John Tortorella, who is back in the Finals for the first time in 22 years.

“The last round, that’s when you play for the Stanley Cup. We have an opportunity to play for the Stanley Cup now. Proud of the guys.”

Vegas has one more round to win, which will come against either the Montreal Canadiens or Carolina Hurricanes. The Canes lead the East Final 2-1 with Game 4 set for Wednesday night.

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