LAS VEGAS >> Bruce Cassidy has been the Golden Knights’ coach for only a year, but he knows full well the history of the Misfits.

So in the game that would win the Stanley Cup for Vegas, Cassidy started five of the original Knights and sent the sixth one in for the second shift Tuesday night in a 9-3 victory over the Florida Panthers.

“They’re the original guys, right?” Cassidy said. “They’re the foundation of this hockey team. The first building blocks started with them. They’ve been here since the beginning. They lost in a final like I did. I know how that feels, so very happy for them.”

Cassidy lost in Game 7 of the 2019 final to the St. Louis Blues when he coached the Boston Bruins.

The half-dozen Knights were on the 2017-18 team that dubbed itself the Golden Misfits because it was a collection of players from all over the NHL.

The original Knights fell in five games to the Washington Capitals in the final. This time, they were an integral part of the championship team that knocked off the Panthers in five games.

Jonathan Marchessault, one of the players who watched the Capitals party on the T-Mobile Arena ice, won the Conn Smythe Trophy for playoff MVP.

“We waited a long time for that moment to come back,” Marchessault said. “We wanted to make sure we cashed in this time.”

Captain Mark Stone, as is tradition, was the first to skate with the Stanley Cup. Then he handed the 37-pound trophy to Reilly Smith, and soon after it was passed to Marchessault and then to William Karlsson and then to Brayden McNabb and then to Shea Theodore and finally to William Carrier.

All, except Stone, are original Knights.

“I don’t think we thought about that or planned that,” Carrier said. “It was just off the call, guys calling out to one another, not well planned. The guys have been here, they’ve been battling. It’s been a lot of hockey the last six years, a lot of practices, so it’s a credit to this group of six guys that are still here. It means a lot.”

Those six have not only won the Stanley Cup, but played in the final twice, and made the NHL semifinals at least four times.

Not a bad resume from players mostly left unprotected from other teams.

McNabb said the thought of winning the Stanley Cup wasn’t even on his mind when the team was formed. Vegas picked him up in the expansion draft from the Los Angeles Kings.

“I was just hoping to make the team,” McNabb said.

McNabb started with Theodore on the blue line against the Panthers, and then Karlsson, Marchessault and Smith made up the Misfit line. Carrier, a forward, entered on the game’s second shift.

Smith scored a goal and assisted on another Tuesday, Theodore finished with three assists, and McNabb, Marchessault and Karlsson each had an assist.