RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) It took just one shot and 25 seconds worth of game action for the Vegas Golden Knights to find themselves in hole in the Stanley Cup Final.
And by midway through the opening period, they were down two goals against a fast-skating Carolina Hurricanes team teeming with energy from a buzzing home crowd.
No matter. And no panic. Not with these tested Golden Knights.
Tomas Hertl took a backhand pass from Colton Sisson and beat Frederik Andersen from the slot with 3:24 left in the third period, lifting the Golden Knights past the Carolina Hurricanes 5-4 in Tuesday night’s opener of the Stanley Cup Final.
“I’ve said it all through the playoffs: it’s a find-a-way league,” Vegas coach John Tortorella said. “We found a way tonight.”
Game 2 of the best-of-seven series is Thursday in Raleigh, with Vegas already having taken home-ice away from the Hurricanes as it chases a second Cup title in four seasons.
“Momentum swings happen quickly,” Tortorella said. “We want to keep the momentum on our side, so there’s no question we’re looking to get two.”
Hertl’s finish off Sisson’s feed from the right faceoff circle broke a 4-4 tie and pushed the Golden Knights ahead in an entertaining back-and-forth start on the sport’s biggest stage. It marked Vegas’ seventh straight win of the playoffs, starting with the last two games of the six-game second-round series against Anaheim and then the shocking four-game sweep of the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Colorado Avalanche.
That series included Vegas erasing a 3-0 deficit to take Game 3, and now the Golden Knights have followed by rallying from another multigoal deficit – this time 2-0 in the opening period – against the team that finished second only to the Avs in the regular season.
“It was a terrible start,” said center William Karlsson, who capped a run of three straight goals that pushed Vegas to a 3-2 second-period lead. “Just like it was against Colorado, a lot of time left. We always believe.”
Things changed after Tortorella gathered his team around the bench during a TV timeout after the Hurricanes had sprinted out to their lead, coming as Vegas had a slow start out of its six-day break while waiting for Carolina to close out Montreal in a five-game Eastern Conference Final.
“Just stick with the program, on our gameplan, and not get impatient,” said defenseman Brayden McNabb, who had three assists. “They pressure a lot and we want to keep the puck going north, and limit east-west plays.”
Shea Theodore, Ivan Barbashev and Brett Howden also scored for Vegas, with Howden’s postseason-leading 11th score giving the Golden Knights a 4-3 lead just 1:21 into the third period. Carter Hart finished with 23 saves, including a key stop on Seth Jarvis only seconds before Hertl’s winner.
Nikolaj Ehlers scored twice for the Hurricanes, the first coming 25 seconds into the game when he got loose on a rush and blasted one past Hart from the left side on the game’s first shot. He followed with a breakaway that gave Carolina a 2-0 lead and sent a charged home crowd into an eruption in the team’s first Stanley Cup Final game in two decades.
Jordan Staal and Shayne Gostisbehere each scored tying goals after Vegas had pushed to a lead, with Gostisbehere skating in clean on the left side to blast one past Hart at 11:19 of the third period and tie it once more at 4. Andersen finished with 18 saves.
“I thought they played just a little bit better than us,” Staal said. “They executed their game plan and aggressive on their forecheck and played in our end, and they buried their chances when they had them.”
The Hurricanes went 12-1 through three rounds to get back to the Stanley Cup Final for the first time since coach Rod Brind’Amour captained them to the title in 2006. It also comes amid an eight-year playoff streak that has included at least one series win every time as a regular postseason contender.
Carolina swept through Ottawa and Philadelphia before taking the last four games of a five-game win against Montreal to punch through an Eastern Conference Final roadblock. That made the Hurricanes the first team since 1983 to reach the Stanley Cup Final with one loss, and the first since the NHL went to best-of-seven series in all four rounds in 1987.
Meanwhile, Vegas had been getting stronger with every playoff round, winning for 19 of 24 games going back to the unexpected late-season firing of Bruce Cassidy to hire Tortorella as coach. That included the shocking result against the Avalanche, who managed just seven goals in four games.
Defense had been the standout feature for both teams, in fact, with Carolina having allowed two or fewer goals in 12 of 13 playoff games. But that wasn’t the case in Tuesday’s fast-paced series opener, with both teams capitalizing on their chances in an entertaining back-and-forth game before Hertl got Vegas the lead for good.
“This is a totally different team, and that may be part of it too,” Brind’Amour said when asked about comparisons to the 6-2 loss to the Canadiens in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Final. “We’ve got to get up to speed on how this game and this series is going to go. I think we certainly got a taste of that now.”
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