Dallas to face Golden Knights in NHL West finals
The Dallas Stars advanced to the Western Conference final with a 2-1 win over the Seattle Kraken in Game 7 on Monday night, with goals from Roope Hintz and 19-year-old Wyatt Johnston. Dallas moves on to play first-year Stars coach Pete DeBoer's former team, the Vegas Golden Knights, which have been making history since they broke into the league. The Golden Knights had made some more history Sunday night, defeating Edmonton 5-2 to win their playoff series in six games.  They have become the third team in NHL playoffs history to make the conference final four times in their first six seasons.  “I think Vegas is the most impressive of those,” Ontario-based hockey historian Eric Zweig said.  “The fact that they’ve had to do it in a salary-cap era with a 32-team NHL and they’ve still done it. They’ve even had a couple setbacks. They haven’t just been onward and up. I still don’t know how they did it the first year. That's miraculous to me that they actually kept up that 100-point pace all year long and made the Stanley Cup Final.”  The major hole in the Knights' resume is not winning the Stanley Cup, and they have not been back to the championship round since losing in five games that first season to Washington. Game 1 of the West final is on Friday night in Las Vegas. (AP)