RALEIGH, N.C. \u2014 So much for a low-scoring game.<\/p>\n
This Stanley Cup Final pits the best defensive team in the Eastern Conference through three rounds (Carolina and its 1.62 goals against per game) against the best defensive team in the Western Conference through three rounds (Vegas and its 2.38 goals against per game), not to mention the two goalies with the best save percentage in the league through three rounds: Frederik Andersen (.931) and Carter Hart (.924).<\/p>\n
After eight combined goals in the first 56 minutes, Tomas Hertl, who earlier this postseason cracked a 29-game goal drought, snapped a 4-4 tie with 3:24 left with a snipe from between the circles to help lead the Golden Knights to a come-from-behind 5-4 win in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final at Lenovo Center.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just proud of our team effort, every single guy,\u201d Hertl said. \u201cIt\u2019s not always about the goals.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hertl\u2019s goal came just 19 seconds after Hart robbed a snakebitten Seth Jarvis.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a find-a-way league,\u201d coach John Tortorella said. \u201cWe found a way.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Golden Knights stormed back from a 2-0 deficit, at one point taking a 4-3 lead early in the third period on Brett Howden\u2019s league-leading 11th goal until Shayne Gostisbehere tied the score with a blast past Hart after Logan Stankoven won a 50-50 puck off a faceoff.<\/p>\n
The Golden Knights won their seventh consecutive game. With the return of Jeremy Lauzon from injury, it was the first time since opening night that they were completely healthy. Vegas handed Carolina only its second loss in 14 playoff games.<\/p>\n
Nikolaj Ehlers scored two first-period goals, including becoming the second player on record since 1997-98 to score on the first shot of the game just 25 seconds in.<\/p>\n
The first TV timeout came at a good time. Tortorella gathered his team.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust trying to calm us down a little bit,\u201d said defenseman Shea Theodore. \u201cIt\u2019s loud, it\u2019s rowdy, they were kind of all over us to start, so I liked his approach of just getting everyone in, getting everyone on the same page and kind of just back to work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Theodore then scored on a deflected shot \u2014 the first of three goals on five shots by the Golden Knights as they stormed back to take a 3-2 lead early in the second on goals by Ivan Barbashev and William Karlsson.<\/p>\n
Barbashev\u2019s goal came 30 seconds into the second, making this the first Stanley Cup Final game in history where there was a goal in the opening 30 seconds of the first two periods.<\/p>\n
But Hurricanes captain Jordan Staal tied the game at 3-3 with his first Stanley Cup Final goal in 6,202 days.<\/p>\n
Theodore and Brayden McNabb had three points each.<\/p>\n
Teams that win Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final go on to win the Cup 76.4 percent of the time (81-25), including a 60-14 (.811) record when the home team takes the first game and 21-11 (.656) as the road team. Game 2 is Thursday night back in Raleigh before the series heads to Sin City.<\/p>\n
Ehlers strikes twice in the first<\/p>\n
For years, the Hurricanes played with perfect structure in the playoffs, only to be stopped short by a glaring flaw: they lacked a game-breaker capable of shattering a game wide open. When Andrei Svechnikov tore his ACL three years ago, Florida swept them. Last year, the Panthers beat them again, winning in five games. Carolina needed an antidote to their playoff heartbreak, so they spent $51 million last summer to bring in Ehlers.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday night, it took exactly 25 seconds for Ehlers to strike.<\/p>\n
Rocketing down the ice on Carolina\u2019s first shift of the Stanley Cup Final on a two-on-one, Ehlers fired the game\u2019s first shot into the back of the net. By the time he buried a breakaway later in the period to make it 2-0, the Lenovo Center was in a frenzy. He became the third Dane ever to score on hockey\u2019s biggest stage, logging the fastest Stanley Cup Final opener since 1976 and matching a first-period multi-goal feat not seen since Al MacInnis in 1989. The Canes finally have their game-breaker.<\/p>\n
Jalen Chatfield assisted on both of Ehlers\u2019 first-period goals, the second on a beautiful headman chip when Ehlers cherry-picked behind Vegas\u2019 defense. He became the 10th defenseman in NHL history to record multiple points in the opening period of a Stanley Cup Final, and the second in the past 33 years.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, the Canes took their foot off the gas.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are a good team, they pressure really well,\u201d Ehlers said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t do a good enough job of getting pucks out and that takes all five of the guys out there and we weren\u2019t able to do that enough. That created some changes for them and they are too good a team not to score on those chances.\u201d \u2014 Russo<\/p>\n
Off night for the goalies<\/p>\n
A Conn Smythe Trophy is not lost in one game, but Andersen and Hart\u2019s playoff MVP chances took a hit with equally shaky performances to start the final.<\/p>\n
Andersen, seen as a Conn Smythe front-runner by many after three playoff rounds, gave up three goals on his first eight shots against in Game 1 and seemed to be fighting it, especially in the second period.<\/p>\n
Andersen was also shaky in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference final with Montreal before completely shutting down the Canadiens the rest of that series.<\/p>\n
It has been an emotional past week for the veteran goalie, who is dealing with the death of his longtime agent Claude Lemieux.<\/p>\n
Hart, meanwhile, gave up a goal on the opening shot of the final. But it\u2019s Staal\u2019s 3-3 goal 12:42 into the second period that Hart needed to have. It was a great shot by Staal from the top of the faceoff circle, but that\u2019s a save all day long by top NHL goalies. And while it was probably distracting to see Nic Dowd fall to block the shot just as Gostisbehere shot it, the 4-4 goal that beat Hart short side wasn\u2019t pretty, either.<\/p>\n
Hart was dominant in the Western Conference final, very much outplaying his Avalanche goalie counterparts, and that was a major reason for the four-game sweep. But Tuesday night was not his finest. \u2014 LeBrun\u00a0<\/p>\n
Eichel vs. Staal<\/p>\n
The matchup between Vegas\u2019 top line, centered by Jack Eichel, and Carolina\u2019s shutdown line, centered by Staal, was expected to be one of the biggest factors of the Cup Final. Through one game, it didn\u2019t disappoint. The lines saw plenty of each other on Tuesday night, with Staal\u2019s line coming out on top in Round 1.<\/p>\n
Vegas coach John Tortorella started the game with Eichel, Barbashev and Pavel Dorofeyev. Rod Brind\u2019Amour countered for Carolina with Staal, Ehlers and Jordan Martinook, and they scored on the opening shift. The line struck again in the first period when Chatfield intercepted Eichel\u2019s pass at the Carolina blue line and sprung Ehlers for another breakaway goal.<\/p>\n
Eichel\u2019s line punched back early in the second period, tying the game 2-2 with a goal by Barbashev. It was a great shift by Vegas\u2019 No. 1 center. He stole the puck along the wall as Carolina attempted to break it out of the zone, then retrieved his own missed shot and fed a pass to Barbashev in the slot. Barbashev rang his shot off the post and in for his sixth goal of the playoffs.<\/p>\n
Staal answered with a goal of his own midway through the second period to tie the game 3-3. It was a snipe of a shot over Hart\u2019s blocker following a giveaway by Vegas high in the zone. The fingerprints of this matchup were all over Tuesday\u2019s game, on both ends of the ice, and that\u2019s likely to continue. \u2014 Granger<\/p>\n
Canes\u2019 top line blanked<\/p>\n
As good as the Stankoven line has been with Taylor Hall and Jackson Blake all postseason, it\u2019s been perplexing how Carolina\u2019s top line really hasn\u2019t broken out. Jarvis entered the game tied as the team\u2019s fifth-leading scorer and Svechnikov and Sebastian Aho tied for seventh.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d love to have more production,\u201d Brind\u2019Amour said Tuesday morning. \u201cWe haven\u2019t needed it yet \u2014 fortunately for us, but obviously the amount of minutes they play and the situations they play, we\u2019re going to need them to be on the scoresheet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Well, the trio finished the game with no points and six combined shots.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is (frustration), but again, like I said in the past, the chances are there,\u201d Jarvis said. \u201cWe\u2019ve had our looks, and we just have to capitalize more now than ever. And so we can\u2019t dwell on the past. We can\u2019t dwell on the stuff we missed. It\u2019s about the next shift and next shot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jarvis flubbed a shot at a wide-open net on a third-period power play and was robbed with 3:43 left by Hart\u2019s quick glove. Nineteen seconds later, Hertl scored.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t get quite enough wood on that pass from (Aho), and yeah, they capitalized,\u201d Jarvis said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t.\u201d \u2014\u00a0Russo\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bad time for a \u2018breather\u2019<\/p>\n
Hertl\u2019s goal was set up, in part, by Gostisbehere downshifting at the exact wrong moment. The Hurricanes defenseman closely tracked Hertl from behind Carolina\u2019s net to the middle of the faceoff dot, but paused when he thought Hertl had put a shot on Andersen.<\/p>\n
The puck instead trickled to Colton Sissons in a crowded slot, and he found Hertl for a look that made its way to the net and over the goal line to give the Golden Knights a lead that they wouldn\u2019t relinquish.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s how quick it can happen,\u201d Gostisbehere said. \u201cYeah, that one\u2019s definitely on me. Just took a breather for a second.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brind\u2019Amour seemed to agree with Gostisbehere\u2019s apportion of blame but also noted that it wasn\u2019t the only mental hiccup we saw from his team in Game 1. Vegas pressured the Hurricanes into some poor decisions, Brind\u2019Amour said. They also made some bad calls all by themselves, and Gostisbehere\u2019s came at a particularly bad time.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose are the mistakes we made tonight that, really, we just don\u2019t make,\u201d Brind\u2019Amour said, \u201cand we made too many of those tonight.\u201d \u2014 Gentille<\/p>\n
McNabb\u2019s big night<\/p>\n
Tuesday night was the 1,005th NHL game of McNabb\u2019s career, including the regular season and playoffs. It was his first with three assists.<\/p>\n
McNabb has served as the defensive anchor in Vegas for nine seasons, but isn\u2019t the most offensively inclined blueliner. The puck was following him in Game 1, and he made the most of it with assists on goals by Theodore, Barbashev and Howden.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s an offensive guy,\u201d joked Theodore, his defensive partner.<\/p>\n
The bruising defender had only two multi-assist playoff games in his 14-year career, and had only one three-point game of any kind (in the regular season against the Arizona Coyotes on April 9, 2022).<\/p>\n
He became the seventh different defenseman in NHL history to record three points in Game 1 of a Stanley Cup Final, and the second in the past 33 years, alongside Rob Blake.\u2014 Granger<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RALEIGH, N.C. \u2014 So much for a low-scoring game. This Stanley Cup Final pits the best defensive team…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":681418,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[4821,385,99,1793],"class_list":["post-681417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-carolina-hurricanes","tag-nhl","tag-sports","tag-vegas-golden-knights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=681417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/681418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=681417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=681417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=681417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}