In their sixth NHL season, the Vegas Golden Knights won the Stanley Cup on Monday. The 9-3 victory in Game 5 clinched the series — and championship — for defenseman Alec Martinez and company. This marked the third time the Rochester Hills native has won the Stanley Cup. In his 13th NHL season, Martinez played in all 22 playoff games for the Golden Knights, scoring two goals and seven points. He played the third-most minutes on the team during the postseason and finished with a plus-13 rating.

Martinez became the 44th player in the modern era to win the trophy for a third time. Teammate Jonathan Quick — who won alongside Martinez in 2012 and 2014 with the Los Angeles Kings — also joins the three-peat club. 

A winner at seemingly every level, he left HoneyBaked in 2004 after being drafted by the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders in the USHL. His first season of junior hockey, Martinez helped the RoughRiders win their first Clark Cup championship in history. Just one year later, he played an integral role in Miami (Ohio) winning the CCHA regular-season championship as an 18-year-old freshman. Then, in his second full season in the NHL, Martinez hoisted the Stanley Cup for the first time, as the Kings won their first Stanley Cup in the organization’s history. 

Cotter the lone rookie for a veteran-laden Cup champion Knights

Despite not playing in a playoff game during the Golden Knights Stanley Cup run, ‘99-born Paul Cotter is still in line to be among the names engraved on the trophy. In order to be included in the 52 names etched on the Stanley Cup each year, players must meet one of two qualifications. They must appear in 41 or more regular-season games, or play in at least one Stanley Cup Final game. The 23-year-old rookie meets the first criteria, having played in 55 regular-season games. 

If he is in fact among the list of names, Cotter would be the lone rookie on a team whose average age was 28.4 years old. That makes Vegas the oldest team to win the Cup since the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2017. 

Cotter and Martinez are the first Michigan natives to win the Stanley Cup since Brother Rice alumni Mackenzie MacEachern did so with the St. Louis Blues.