It's the year 2023. You're watching a Stanley Cup Final that features a team from Las Vegas against a team from just outside Miami. Now imagine that you are telling this to the version of yourself from 20, 30, 40, or 50 years ago (depending how far back you can go). Would you have believed it? Seems like a scene from Back to the Future. This isn't the first Stanley Cup Final of two teams from the Sun Belt, but it seems different in that these two teams were granted their franchises after the Gary Bettman era begun. We're a long way from the Original 6. At least there are no hover skates or anything like that – just offside video reviews.

Golden Knights 5, Panthers 2 (Golden Knights lead series 1-0)

It was a team effort from the Golden Knights, who benefitted from five different goal scorers.

Zach Whitecloud's second goal of the playoffs turned out to the game winner with just over 13 minutes to play in the third period.

Zach Whitecloud fires it through traffic to get back the lead for Vegas! 🚦 pic.twitter.com/Rl0GrgHntZ

— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) June 4, 2023

It's hard to believe that Jonathan Marchessault didn't score a goal in his first seven playoff games. With a goal on Saturday, he now has 10 goals in his last 11 games and 14 points in his last 9 games. He has also tied fellow original Golden Misfit William Karlsson for the team playoff lead with 10 goals.  

Mark Stone broke a four-game pointless slump with an insurance goal late in the third period. Stone also led all players in this game with seven shots on goal.

Shea Theodore scored his first goal of the playoffs while adding an assist. He has taken three shots in four of his last five games.

Surprise playoff hero Adin Hill stopped 33 of 35 shots for his eighth quality start in nine games. This was just one of his 33 saves in the game, which prevented the Panthers from taking the lead.

ADIN. HILL. SPEECHLESS. 😱 pic.twitter.com/z2CsXQcgYu

— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) June 4, 2023

Sergei Bobrovsky's run of quality starts has now ended at 10. Goalie Bob allowed four goals on 33 shots in the loss, which didn't qualify as a really bad start. His only really bad start came in Game 4 of the first-round series against Boston.

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Whether you like it or not, Mike Babcock seems to be returning to behind an NHL bench next season.

Speculation around the Memorial Cup is Mike Babcock will return to the NHL as @BlueJacketsNHL new coach and the delay in announcing coincides with his existing contract with the Maple Leafs expiring the end of this month. https://t.co/OUlxBRS8bq

— Darren Dreger (@DarrenDreger) June 3, 2023

Babcock has the résumé and potential to be an upgrade over the less experienced and recently departed Brad Larsen as the Blue Jackets head coach. Yet the million-dollar question is whether Babcock has used his time off to reflect on how to be a more people-oriented leader. The old-school hockey taskmaster approach is less effective with today's player. Given the stories about Babcock's controversial coaching style, I'm sure not every Columbus player is thrilled about this news.

One way or another, the potential is there for many Columbus players to have a better season in 2023-24 (one of those key players is mentioned shortly). The coach may receive credit for that, but the Blue Jackets were absolutely snakebitten with injuries and should be better simply based on rostering a lineup with more regulars every game. That was evident by the fact that the Jackets used 41 different skaters over the season.

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Yesterday I discussed goal scorers who were the beneficiaries of high shooting percentages. Today I'll flip it the other way to players who had relatively low shooting percentages. I'll discuss whether these players could naturally improve in the goals department next season.

Johnny Gaudreau

Johnny Hockey's first season in Columbus didn't go as well as hoped, although the same could be said for the rest of the team. Following a career-high 40 goals in his final season in Calgary, Gaudreau scored just 21 times for the Blue Jackets. He didn't have a player of the ability of Matthew Tkachuk on his line, but his shooting percentage dipped from 15.3% to just 9.5%.

In that impressive final season with the Flames (115 points in addition to 40 goals), Gaudreau had also taken 3.2 shots per game, which was also a career high. The initial take of Gaudreau signing with Columbus was that he would lose value because of the lack of scoring options with his new team, and that was probably reflected in the decrease of shots that he would take (2.8 SOG/GP). In addition to the shooting percentage dropping, Gaudreau went from an extremely high 1065 PDO in that career season to just 988 PDO in Columbus.

One key for the Jackets to have any success will be fewer trips to the IR. That in itself should help Gaudreau rebound to some degree. Although a 100-point season in Columbus seems unlikely next season, he should at least have a better season in 2023-24.

Coincidentally, I wrote the above three paragraphs before the Babcock news, so I'll add to it here. It's easy to assume that Gaudreau wouldn't like playing for Babcock and that he is already second-guessing his decision to sign with Columbus last summer (the pervasive opinion on Twitter). Yet it's worth mentioning that Gaudreau scored that career-best 40 goals and 115 points under Darryl Sutter, another coach that has a reputation of not being player-friendly. Focusing strictly on hockey, Babcock is a skills-oriented coach, as evidenced in particular by the style of play of his Mighty Ducks, Red Wings and Maple Leafs teams. That in particular is the right fit for Gaudreau.

Drake Batherson

Batherson doubled his career high in shots in 2022-23 (249 SOG), although he had never played more than 56 games in a season before then. Unfortunately, this gain in shots was offset by his shooting percentage nearly being cut in half (from 15.5% in 2021-22 to 8.8% in 2022-23). Batherson modestly increasing his shot rate from 2.4 SOG/GP to 3.0 SOG/GP resulted in him hitting a career high of 22 goals.

It appears there is definitely room for more with Batherson. If his shooting percentage were to increase to 12%, Batherson would have scored 30 goals, assuming he could take the same number of shots and not miss any games. A PDO of 956 suggests that Batherson could have received some better bounces. His 5-on-5 shooting percentage also dropped from 10.6% in 2021-22 to 6.6% in 2022-23.

With a potential increase in goals, Batherson seems like a good bet to crack the 70-point mark for the first time in his career next season. He's already scored at a near point-per-game pace (0.96 PTS/GP) in 2021-22, which is why continued growth can be projected.

Seth Jarvis

Jarvis was a popular 2022-23 sleeper pick, yet he was stuck in neutral for much of the season. In fact, he regressed from a 48-point 82-game pace to a 39-point pace. Was he the victim of bad luck? There are a few numbers that suggest that could have been the case.

For starters, Jarvis's shooting percentage fell from 15.5% in 2021-22 to just 7.5% in 2022-23. This in spite of taking nearly a shot more per game (1.6 SOG/GP to 2.3 SOG/GP). His 5-on-5 shooting percentage also showed a drop from 9.9% in 2021-22 to 7.1% in 2022-23.

If Jarvis's shooting percentage can increase to about 10%, he should be good for at least 20 goals next season. In addition, Jarvis showed some strong ability with scoring chances during the playoffs, as Mike pointed out in his recent Ramblings. Remaining on the Sebastian Aho – Teuvo Teravainen line, as he was for much of the 2022-23 season, should also help Jarvis's cause for next season.

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Follow me on Twitter @Ian_Gooding for more fantasy hockey.