RALEIGH, N.C. — The Carolina Hurricanes are one win from the Stanley Cup, and they got there on the strength of the thing that has decided this entire series: the power play. Andrei Svechnikov scored twice with the man advantage on Thursday night, the Hurricanes beat the Vegas Golden Knights 4-2, and a building that has waited two decades for this stood and understood exactly how close it has come.
Carolina leads the best-of-seven final 3-2. Game 6 is Sunday night at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, where one win delivers the franchise its first championship since 2006.
For Svechnikov the night carried a weight that went past the scoreline. “This is the biggest win in my life, personally,” he said afterward. “Thank God we won that game.” His first goal, at 11:58 of the second period, turned a 1-1 game into a Carolina lead it never surrendered. His second, early in the third, made it 4-1 and effectively ended the night. Both came on the power play, the unit that has quietly run this series while the bigger names traded headlines.
The other story is the one that refuses to stop. Jordan Staal scored again at 11:46 of the first period to erase Pavel Dorofeyev’s early power-play opener, and in doing so extended his goal streak to a fifth consecutive game in the final. The 37-year-old captain whose diving goal won Game 4 is now in company that takes a moment to absorb: the league lists him as only the fifth player to score in five straight Finals games, alongside Yvan Cournoyer, Jean Beliveau, Maurice Richard and Cyclone Taylor. He is the first to author such a streak at both ends of a career, once as a teenager and now past 35. Staal, true to form, declined the romance. “Good company,” he said, “but I’m looking for wins.”
His coach was less restrained. “He’s our guy and he’s our warrior, and I’m really happy,” Rod Brind’Amour said of Staal, the kind of sentence a coach reserves for a player he has run into the ground and watched refuse to break.
In goal, the gamble keeps paying out. Brandon Bussi made 23 saves in his second straight start, and according to NHL.com he became the first goaltender ever to win his first two career playoff starts in a Stanley Cup Final. Brind’Amour’s decision to sit Frederik Andersen, the choice that hung over the series after Game 3, has now produced two wins from a waiver-wire rookie on the sport’s biggest stage.
Sebastian Aho scored his first of the series in between Svechnikov’s two, and Nikolaj Ehlers set up three goals for his second consecutive three-point night, the supporting evidence that this was not a one-line performance. Carolina has now scored four or more goals in each of the first five games of the final, something CBS Sports noted no team had managed since the 1973 Canadiens.
Vegas leaves Raleigh with a wound beyond the scoreboard. William Karlsson left in the second period with an apparent left-arm injury and is likely out for Game 6, a real loss for a team that uses him in every situation. Dorofeyev’s two goals were the night’s lone Golden Knights bright spot, and Carter Hart, beaten four times for a fifth straight game, has now watched the Carolina power play turn his series into a math problem he cannot solve.
What Carolina cannot quite say out loud is how thin the margin between here and a parade still is. The Hurricanes have led this final before and watched Vegas claw it back, and Game 6 returns to the building where the Golden Knights won the series’ wildest night. One road win ends a twenty-year wait. The question the Hurricanes carry to the desert is whether a team that has done everything but close can close, and they will not get an answer until Sunday.
