RALEIGH, N.C. — The Carolina Hurricanes had spent the NHL playoffs waiting for their power play to get going, along with top-line performers Andrei Svechnikov and Sebastian Aho.
And they had spent the first four games of the Stanley Cup Final being outplayed in critical second-period sequences.
On Thursday night, it all came together, aligning to bring the Hurricanes within a victory of winning the Cup.
Svechnikov scored twice and Aho added a second-period goal in a breakout offensive game for both, helping the Hurricanes beat the Vegas Golden Knights 4-2 for a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven series.
“I liked our effort for sure, and I hope we're getting better,” coach Rod Brind'Amour said. “I think there's certain areas of our game that are starting to look a lot like we need it to look. But I do think there's still another level that we're going to need to get to find that next one.”
Captain Jordan Staal found the net again for the fifth straight game in this series after Vegas had taken a 1-0 first-period lead, while Brandon Bussi finished with 23 saves in his second career postseason start.
Game 6 is Sunday night in Las Vegas, with the Hurricanes playing for the chance to hoist the Stanley Cup for the first time since Brind’Amour captained them to the title in 2006.
Aho's goal in the second period marked his first of the series, coming when Sean Walker found him cutting to the left side after Jordan Martinook — swapped with Seth Jarvis to work alongside Aho and Svechnikov on the top line — won a puck battle behind the net on the forecheck.
Then there was Svechnikov, who entered Thursday with four postseason goals before striking twice on the power play. On the first, he whipped the puck past Carter Hart on the right side for a 2-1 lead in the second period. On the second, he had a short putaway at the post off a sharp feed from Nikolaj Ehlers for a 4-1 lead, one of three assist for Ehlers on the night that included him having two delay-of-game penalties for putting a puck over the glass.
Before those second-period scores, Vegas had outscored Carolina 9-1 in the second period during the series.
And unlike most multi-goal leads in what has been a wild and thrilling series, this one held up with Bussi doing enough to stave off Vegas' late push to climb back in it.
“It required everything we have,” Staal said on the ESPN broadcast.
Pavel Dorofeyev scored twice for Vegas, finding the net for the first time since Game 1 of the Western Conference Final sweep of Presidents’ Trophy winner Colorado.
“I thought we were still doing some good things,” Vegas’ Jack Eichel said. “We had chances.”
Hart entered this one as the first goaltender in Stanley Cup Final history to give up at least four goals in each of the first four games, then did it again to continue a difficult series while finishing with 20 saves.
Asked if he considered swapping to backup Adin Hill, coach John Tortorella responded: “That could be the stupidest question I've heard.”
Vegas had twice before been in a 2-2 series in these playoffs, in the first round against Utah and the second round against Anaheim. Both times, the Golden Knights won Game 5 and closed out the series in Game 6.
This time, they’ll have to win on home ice to force the series back to Carolina for a Game 7 on Wednesday night. And they'll have to take two in a row against a Hurricanes team that hasn't suffered consecutive losses since mid-January.
Not that Tortorella was fazed.
“We'll be back here,” he said confidently, saying he would leave his clothes behind at the team's hotel in expectation of returning to North Carolina.
Vegas played much of the night without center William Karlsson, who was being checked out on the bench for an apparent upper-body injury. Karlsson skated to the tunnel midway through the second period and didn’t return. Tortorella said the center was “not going to be with us, probably" in the coming games.
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