Stanley Cup Final Game 1: Key takeaways from Golden Knights’ come-from-behind win over Hurricanes

RALEIGH, N.C. — So much for a low-scoring game.

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).

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.

“I’m just proud of our team effort, every single guy,” Hertl said. “It’s not always about the goals.”

Hertl’s goal came just 19 seconds after Hart robbed a snakebitten Seth Jarvis.

“It’s a find-a-way league,” coach John Tortorella said. “We found a way.”

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’s 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.

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.

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.

The first TV timeout came at a good time. Tortorella gathered his team.

“Just trying to calm us down a little bit,” said defenseman Shea Theodore. “It’s loud, it’s 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.”

Theodore then scored on a deflected shot — 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.

Barbashev’s 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.

But Hurricanes captain Jordan Staal tied the game at 3-3 with his first Stanley Cup Final goal in 6,202 days.

Theodore and Brayden McNabb had three points each.

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.

Ehlers strikes twice in the first

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.

On Tuesday night, it took exactly 25 seconds for Ehlers to strike.

Rocketing down the ice on Carolina’s first shift of the Stanley Cup Final on a two-on-one, Ehlers fired the game’s 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’s 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.

Jalen Chatfield assisted on both of Ehlers’ first-period goals, the second on a beautiful headman chip when Ehlers cherry-picked behind Vegas’ 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.

Nevertheless, the Canes took their foot off the gas.

“They are a good team, they pressure really well,” Ehlers said. “We didn’t do a good enough job of getting pucks out and that takes all five of the guys out there and we weren’t able to do that enough. That created some changes for them and they are too good a team not to score on those chances.” — Russo

Off night for the goalies

A Conn Smythe Trophy is not lost in one game, but Andersen and Hart’s playoff MVP chances took a hit with equally shaky performances to start the final.

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.

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.

It has been an emotional past week for the veteran goalie, who is dealing with the death of his longtime agent Claude Lemieux.

Hart, meanwhile, gave up a goal on the opening shot of the final. But it’s Staal’s 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’s 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’t pretty, either.

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. — LeBrun 

Eichel vs. Staal

The matchup between Vegas’ top line, centered by Jack Eichel, and Carolina’s shutdown line, centered by Staal, was expected to be one of the biggest factors of the Cup Final. Through one game, it didn’t disappoint. The lines saw plenty of each other on Tuesday night, with Staal’s line coming out on top in Round 1.

Vegas coach John Tortorella started the game with Eichel, Barbashev and Pavel Dorofeyev. Rod Brind’Amour 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’s pass at the Carolina blue line and sprung Ehlers for another breakaway goal.

Eichel’s 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’ 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.

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’s blocker following a giveaway by Vegas high in the zone. The fingerprints of this matchup were all over Tuesday’s game, on both ends of the ice, and that’s likely to continue. — Granger

Canes’ top line blanked

As good as the Stankoven line has been with Taylor Hall and Jackson Blake all postseason, it’s been perplexing how Carolina’s top line really hasn’t broken out. Jarvis entered the game tied as the team’s fifth-leading scorer and Svechnikov and Sebastian Aho tied for seventh.

“I’d love to have more production,” Brind’Amour said Tuesday morning. “We haven’t needed it yet — fortunately for us, but obviously the amount of minutes they play and the situations they play, we’re going to need them to be on the scoresheet.”

Well, the trio finished the game with no points and six combined shots.

“There is (frustration), but again, like I said in the past, the chances are there,” Jarvis said. “We’ve had our looks, and we just have to capitalize more now than ever. And so we can’t dwell on the past. We can’t dwell on the stuff we missed. It’s about the next shift and next shot.”

Jarvis flubbed a shot at a wide-open net on a third-period power play and was robbed with 3:43 left by Hart’s quick glove. Nineteen seconds later, Hertl scored.

“I didn’t get quite enough wood on that pass from (Aho), and yeah, they capitalized,” Jarvis said. “We didn’t.” — Russo 

Bad time for a ‘breather’

Hertl’s goal was set up, in part, by Gostisbehere downshifting at the exact wrong moment. The Hurricanes defenseman closely tracked Hertl from behind Carolina’s net to the middle of the faceoff dot, but paused when he thought Hertl had put a shot on Andersen.

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’t relinquish.

“That’s how quick it can happen,” Gostisbehere said. “Yeah, that one’s definitely on me. Just took a breather for a second.”

Brind’Amour seemed to agree with Gostisbehere’s apportion of blame but also noted that it wasn’t the only mental hiccup we saw from his team in Game 1. Vegas pressured the Hurricanes into some poor decisions, Brind’Amour said. They also made some bad calls all by themselves, and Gostisbehere’s came at a particularly bad time.

“Those are the mistakes we made tonight that, really, we just don’t make,” Brind’Amour said, “and we made too many of those tonight.” — Gentille

McNabb’s big night

Tuesday night was the 1,005th NHL game of McNabb’s career, including the regular season and playoffs. It was his first with three assists.

McNabb has served as the defensive anchor in Vegas for nine seasons, but isn’t 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.

“He’s an offensive guy,” joked Theodore, his defensive partner.

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).

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.— Granger