No matter which side you might find yourself rooting for, it’s always interesting to see who is one step away from winning a championship that also happens to have some kind of tie to our great state of Michigan. Vegas stole Game 1 on Tuesday night, but for the rest of the series, here is who you can secretly support.

Tomas Hertl took a backhand pass from Colton Sissons and beat Frederik Andersen from the slot with 3:24 left, lifting the Vegas Golden Knights past the Carolina Hurricanes 5-4 in Tuesday night’s opener of the Stanley Cup Final.

The New Jersey Devils have hired Sunny Mehta as their general manager.

Bill Zito looked exhausted Tuesday.

The Florida Panthers completed another hat trick less than two weeks since repeating as Stanley Cup champions.

Two people familiar with negotiations tell The Associated Press the NHL and NHL Players' Association are close to an agreement on a four-year extension of the collective bargaining agreement.

Moving to an 84-game regular season from 82 is one of the topics that has been discussed in collective bargaining talks between the NHL and the NHL Players’ Association, a person with familiar with negotiations tells The Associated Press.

The Florida Panthers’ Stanley Cup championship festivities have included an all-night celebration at a popular beach bar; crowd surfing, pole climbing and impromptu karaoke at a Miami nightclub; a Brad Marchand appearance at Dairy Queen; a few team dinners and a boat ride.

U.S. television ratings for the Stanley Cup Final rematch between the Florida Panthers and Edmonton Oilers declined from their first matchup a year ago.

Hockey is seeing a surge in popularity and buzz, fed by the 4 Nations tournament, Alex Ovechkin’s stirring run to the NHL career goals record and the Florida Panthers repeating as Stanley Cup champions.

The Stanley Cup is a little banged up, thanks to the Florida Panthers’ celebration of back-to-back titles.

The loudest cheers among Florida Panthers fans at Amerant Bank Arena are always for Sergei Bobrovsky.

The Florida Panthers repeated as Stanley Cup champions by beating the Edmonton Oilers 5-1 in Game 6 of the final.

Brad Marchand scored twice, Sam Bennett had his NHL playoff-leading 15th goal and the Florida Panthers moved to the verge of a second consecutive Stanley Cup title by beating the Edmonton Oilers 5-2 in Game 5 on Saturday night.

Pop superstar Taylor Swift and boyfriend Travis Kelce were among the celebrities that flocked to Amerant Bank Arena to watch Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final between the Florida Panthers and Edmonton Oilers.

It’s starting to feel like an annual tradition: Panthers vs.

What happened on the ice on the night of June 24 was something that the Florida Panthers will never forget.

The puck went into the corner, to the left of Florida goalie Sergei Bobrovsky, with 14 seconds left in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final.

The Edmonton Oilers have signed Leon Draisaitl to an eight-year contract extension worth $112 million.

Four of the past five Stanley Cup champions are based in a place with no state income tax, and the flood of talent to those locales continued in NHL free agency.

Sam Reinhart missed the Florida Panthers’ championship parade.

There was no collapse.

It's not exactly uncommon for a team that gets a championship shot and falls short one year to say that it'll be back the next.

Pius Suter scored with 1:39 left and the Vancouver Canucks advanced to the second round of the NHL playoffs with a 1-0 victory over the Nashville Predators on Friday night in Game 6.

Alex Pietrangelo spoke of sacrifice Sunday, and what it takes for an NHL player to continue his journey this far into the season.

The Vegas Golden Knights were flying high after Game 1 in the 2018 Stanley Cup Final.

The NBA Finals could’ve featured glamour teams like the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers.

They were No. 8 seeds.

If this is Ondrej Palat's final playoff run with the Tampa Bay Lightning, he's certainly making it count.

The Colorado Avalanche face their biggest task yet in the Stanley Cup Final looking to close out the back-to-back defending champion Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 6 on the road.

The Colorado Avalanche were stymied in their quest to close out the two-time defending champion Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final.

The Tampa Bay Lightning spoiled Colorado’s party and they are still in the hunt for a third straight Stanley Cup title after beating the Avalanche 3-2 in Game 5.

Colorado not only failed to take a stranglehold in the Stanley Cup Final after a 6-2 loss to Tampa Bay in Game 3 but also wound up with goaltending questions.

Steven Stamkos, Pat Maroon and Ondrej Palat each had a goal and an assist, and the Tampa Bay Lightning scored four times in the second period and beat the Colorado Avalanche 6-2 in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final.

It’s no secret Tampa Bay has played more hockey over the past two years than any other team in the NHL.

The fast-flying Colorado Avalanche have zoomed out to a 2-0 series lead over Tampa Bay in the Stanley Cup Final.

The Tampa Bay Lightning shrugged off their overtime loss to Colorado in the opener of the Stanley Cup Final.

The Colorado Avalanche overwhelmed the Tampa Bay Lightning 7-0 in Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final to take a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series.

Colorado Avalanche superstar Nathan MacKinnon has upped his game by dialing it down.

The Tampa Bay Lightning say they are unfazed after losing Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final to the Colorado Avalanche.

The Colorado Avalanche are expected to stick with goaltender Darcy Kuemper in goal for Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final.

For much of the game it looked as if the Colorado Avalanche and not the Tampa Bay Lightning were the two-time defending Stanley Cup champions.

Andre Burakovsky scored 1:23 into overtime and the Colorado Avalanche opened the Stanley Cup Final with a 4-3 victory over the two-time defending champion Tampa Bay Lightning on Wednesday night.

At 32 and wrapping up his 14th season, Steven Stamkos is no longer one of the NHL’s most prolific scorers or even the second- or third-best player on his own team.

The Tampa Bay Lightning know what type of effort it will take to finish off the New York Rangers.

The New York Rangers were on the brink of elimination when they came back from Pittsburgh earlier in the week after two bad losses on the road.

Playoff scoring leader Nikita Kucherov had two goals and an assist and Andrei Vasilevskiy finished with 18 saves to outplay Carey Price and lead the Tampa Bay Lightning to a 5-1 victory over the Montreal Canadiens in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final.

The Montreal Canadiens have finally earned respect during a remarkable playoff run that has them in the Stanley Cup Final for the first time in 28 years.

The Stars' return comes after 17 players tested positive for COVID-19, even though most were asymptomatic. Their first four scheduled games, all on the road and including an early Stanley Cup Final rematch with Tampa Bay, were postponed. “Right now, listen, we're all ready for a game,” Stars coach Rick Bowness said after practice Thursday at their home arena. Now the Stars are the last team to open the NHL's 56-game, division-only regular season. About 5,000 fans will be allowed for Stars games, well below the hockey capacity of 18,532, though the NBA's Dallas Mavericks are playing their home games there without fans.

The Stars are still Bowness' team. Dallas officially removed the interim tag Thursday and gave the 65-year-old Bowness a two-year contract, making him the franchise's 24th head coach, and ninth since moving to Dallas in 1993. Bowness was 20-13-5 after becoming their interim head coach. The Stars made it to the Stanley Cup final even while dealing with a plethora of significant injuries. That would have been a lot more interesting if we had been a healthy team,” Bowness said.

FILE - In this June 15, 2015, file photo, Chicago Blackhawks' goalie Corey Crawford kisses the Stanley Cup Trophy after defeating the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 6 of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup Final series in Chicago. The past few weeks have seen several recent Stanley Cup winners get rid of members of their championship core. The Blackhawks moved on from Corey Crawford, the Washington Capitals did the same with Braden Holtby, the Pittsburgh Penguins traded fellow goalie Matt Murray and forward Patric Hornqvist and the St. Louis Blues signing Torey Krug means captain Alex Pietrangelo will sign elsewhere. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)

FILE - In this June 15, 2015, file photo, Chicago Blackhawks' goalie Corey Crawford kisses the Stanley Cup Trophy after defeating the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 6 of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup Final series in Chicago. The past few weeks have seen several recent Stanley Cup winners get rid of members of their championship core. Hornqvist was “blindsided” the Pittsburgh Penguins wanted to trade him. The past several weeks have featured several recent Stanley Cup winners breaking up their championship core by saying goodbye to a key player with his name on the trophy. The agitating, go-to-the-net winger helped Pittsburgh win the Cup in 2016 and 2017.

The Dallas Stars have to fix some things in a hurry, or this Stanley Cup Final could be over quickly. After consecutive games with three-goal periods, Tampa Bay has all of the momentum and a 2-1 series lead. Dallas' top line is without a goal against Tampa Bay. The NHL is playing Stanley Cup Final games on back-to-back nights for the first time since 2009, when Detroit won each of the first two games against Pittsburgh, which eventually won the series in seven games. In its only back-to-back this postseason, Tampa Bay won Games 2 and 3 in the second round of the Eastern Conference playoffs against Boston.

EDMONTON, AB – Nikita Kucherov and the Tampa Bay Lightning got themselves up off the ice to get even in the Stanley Cup Final. It was the first time in seven games Tampa Bay scored the opening goal. But Dallas interim coach Rick Bowness challenged that Tampa Bay was offside, and replay clearly showed that Blake Coleman was. ... Kucherov’s 28 points (six goals, 22 assists) are the most ever in a postseason for a Tampa Bay player. The Lightning have started all three of the Stanley Cup Final appearances the same way, losing Game 1 and then winning Game 2.

I was planning on going down there before all this stuff happened, Boykin said on a video-conference call Tuesday. But next week Ill be down there training with those guys.To this point, Boykin has been playing catch with backup quarterback Trace McSorley around Baltimore. The fact that I have Trace here to be able to work with me is huge, Boykin said. Boykin will join Jackson, second-year receiver Marquise Brown and several others in Florida. There is still no timetable for the resumption of game action or when players can return to team facilities for voluntary workouts.