{"id":339816,"date":"2026-05-31T03:57:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T03:57:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/339816\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T03:57:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T03:57:19","slug":"hertl-of-golden-knights-savors-finally-returning-to-stanley-cup-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/339816\/","title":{"rendered":"Hertl of Golden Knights savors finally returning to Stanley Cup Final"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When he was traded, Hertl was sidelined after having knee surgery the previous month. It probably helped that a familiar face from the 2015-16 Sharks was also with Vegas: Golden Knights assistant coach Joel Ward, a former San Jose forward. Hertl credits Ward and his family with making the transition to his new team easier.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He was great to me,&#8221; Hertl said. &#8220;Even for my wife, because his wife and mine have been pretty close in San Jose. We\u2019ve got (kids) who are almost the same age, so everything is pretty close. So, he helped me a lot, showed me around, and especially helped me early on with the system and everything.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Hertl came back to play seven regular-season games for Vegas that season and seven more in the playoffs. Since then, in his two full seasons with the Golden Knights, he has 119 points (56 goals, 63 assists) in 155 games.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Another person who made Hertl&#8217;s transition to Vegas smooth was Golden Knights captain <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/player\/mark-stone-8475913\" title=\"Mark Stone\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mark Stone<\/a>. Stone, who was part of\u00a0Hertl\u2019s only NHL fight on March 17, 2021, spent time with him rehabbing injuries in 2024. That enabled them to develop chemistry and a mutual understanding of each other&#8217;s playing style.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We got pretty close. I think Mark and I are pretty close friends,&#8221; Hertl said. &#8220;We talk a lot about hockey and everything.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When he was traded, Hertl was sidelined after having knee surgery the previous month. It probably helped that&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339817,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[88,90,89],"class_list":["post-339816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339816\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}