One team looks to well and truly break their postseason curse, while the other is hoping to prove their style of throwing all caution to the wind is enough to guide them to the promised land.
For the third time in their nine-year history, the Vegas Golden Knights are back in the Stanley Cup Final, with the final team standing between them and the silver chalice being the Carolina Hurricanes.
Schedule
Game 1: June 2, 5 p.m. (Lenovo Center)
Game 2: June 4, 5 p.m. (Lenovo Center)
Game 3: June 6, 5 p.m. (T-Mobile Arena)
Game 4: June 9, 5 p.m. (T-Mobile Arena)
*Game 5: June 11, 5 p.m. (Lenovo Center)
*Game 6: June 14, 5 p.m. (T-Mobile Arena)
*Game 7: June 17, 5 p.m. (Lenovo Center)
* — if necessary
How they got here
After battling through the Utah Mammoth and Anaheim Ducks, the Golden Knights saved their best and most shocking performance of the postseason for last.
Facing the President’s Trophy winning Colorado Avalanche in the Western Conference Final, Vegas did not just defy the odds, but actively laughed them off to the tune of a four-game sweep. While there were some tense moments, particularly in crawling out of a three-goal deficit in Game Three, the Golden Knights did a masterful job of getting to their defensive structure and limiting a high-powered Colorado offense for most of the series. Just as they had all postseason, the adjustments made by John Tortorella and his staff have worked like a charm, and the Golden Knights are now four wins away from exceeding all expectations and lifting the Stanley Cup for the second time in four years.
They will have to be ready, however, as they face yet another rampaging beast.
The Hurricanes have played the role of the Avalanche as the juggernaut of the Eastern side of the bracket, sweeping the Ottawa Senators and Philadelphia Flyers with terrifying ease. They faced brief resistance from the Montreal Canadiens in the Eastern Conference Final, but they responded quickly from a Game One disappointment to firing off four straight wins. After years of falling short of hockey’s ultimate prize, head coach and franchise legend Rod Brind’Amour has finally seen his patience pay off, and the Hurricanes are hoping that their analytical process bears the sweetest of fruits.
Keys to victory
Vegas: Finding a way to finally get pucks past Frederik Andersen is a good start, but the Golden Knights also need to worry about where their best potential matchups are in the forward group.
The Taylor Hall-Logan Stankoven-Jackson Blake line has been tearing through the playoffs so far, but the Hurricanes still have the likes of Sebastian Aho, Nikolaj Ehlers and Seth Jarvis worth fretting about. Fortunately for the Golden Knights, the top six forwards have produced at both ends of the ice at such a high level that captain Mark Stone and Tomas Hertl have moved to the third line. They did an excellent job of negating Colorado’s high-powered offense in the Western Conference Final, and a similar 200-foot effort will be required to push Vegas back to the top of the mountain.
Carolina: As expected from a team built around analytics, the Hurricanes are the team to beat from a pure numbers perspective.
While the Golden Knights were one of the few teams to get the edge on the Hurricanes, their regular season series was over before Halloween, so it is difficult to put too much stock in that. Carolina comes in with a serious edge in terms of their fourth line, despite Vegas’ coming up in key moments (see: Cole Smith’s game winner in Game Four against Colorado), while analytics suggest that the pairing of Noah Hanifin and Rasmus Andersson will be the one for the Hurricanes to target. The games are never played on paper for a reason; Vegas has proven that point already just by beating Colorado, but Carolina finding a way to slip past the Golden Knights’ forecheck and attack a possibly vulnerable last line of defense will be crucial.
X-factors
Vegas: Three-for-three in this category so far has been excellent, so let’s see if there is one more push to be had with Hertl.
After going 29 games without a goal, Hertl has finally come alive in the playoffs. The Czech center was responsible for arguably the biggest goal of the playoffs so far with his game winning backhand shot in Game Three, and he has also played a key role in a Vegas power play that is clocking in with a 25 percent success rate. Years of being tantalizingly close to a Stanley Cup with the San Jose Sharks is finally being rewarded with another Cup Final experience, and Hertl would likely be one of the names leading the way to get the first handoff to take the trophy for a lap around the ice.
Carolina: Cale Makar’s injury and being decidedly less than 100 percent means the Golden Knights have yet to face a true blue line general, but the Hurricanes have that role filled by a surprising candidate in K’Andre Miller.
After a disappointing 2024-25 campaign that saw him fall out of favor with the New York Rangers, Miller was traded to the Hurricanes on July 1 for defensive prospect Scott Morrow and draft capital. The trade and subsequent extension has turned out to be one of the best moves of the offseason, as Miller leads the Hurricanes defense with eight points (all assists) this postseason while forming a suffocating defensive pairing with veteran Sean Walker. While Jaccob Slavin is still the linchpin of Carolina’s defensive corps, Miller guarantees that the Golden Knights will have to be mindful if the puck heads out towards the blue line.
Series prediction
While maybe not the matchup the hockey world was expecting, the Golden Knights and Hurricanes have reached this point largely through the same mindset.
Relentless pressure across all areas on the ice has been too much for all challengers. Both teams can roll all four lines with impunity, defense has allowed them to control play and goaltending has been more than up to the task of stopping the pucks that do make it through. Exciting it is not, but this is the type of play that drives playoff runs like these forward.
Where the Golden Knights might have the edge is that they have had to adjust throughout the postseason, whereas the Hurricanes have been able to roll through the playoffs with their current system. What has destroyed the Hurricanes in postseasons past has been an inability to respond when a team like the Tampa Bay Lightning of Florida Panthers managed to exploit weaknesses in their game, but no team so far has managed to do so this time around. If the Golden Knights can at least come away with a split of the first two games and return home with a clear idea on what works, the supposed villains of the hockey world should be the ones getting the last laugh (no taking the Stanley Cup back to some evil underground lair, though; disappointing, I agree.)
Golden Knights in six games.