tsn nhl has the Stanley Cup Final tied 1-1 after the Vegas Golden Knights and Carolina Hurricanes each erased a multigoal deficit in the first two games. The series now shifts to Game 3 at T-Mobile Arena on Saturday, with both clubs carrying a comeback win into the middle game.
Brind'Amour Calls It A Reset
Rod Brind'Amour said, "We're confident," and added, "We should be. We played two good games and we're starting over. That's the way I look at it." Carolina earned that reset by winning Game 2, 4-3 in overtime, after coming back from a 2-0 deficit in the third period on Thursday.
Shayne Gostisbehere put the matchup in blunt terms: "It's obviously a new series," he said. "A five-game series, now." That is the position Carolina enters Game 3 from, with the road team carrying the first split of the Final.
Vegas Returns To T-Mobile Arena
Vegas answered first on Tuesday, rallying from a two-goal first-period deficit to win Game 1, 5-4. That snapped the Golden Knights' seven-game winning streak, but they still hold three straight home wins and a 6-2 mark at home in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Saturday is also their first home game since May 26, when they completed a sweep of the Colorado Avalanche in the Western Conference Final. Keegan Kolesar said after Game 2, "I mean, these are intense crowds," before adding, "You saw it (Thursday) with the lead change. I haven't heard a crowd that loud probably since the Whiteout (in Winnipeg) a couple years ago. So, very excited to be going home to our home crowd. Obviously, we got the first one, which is great. We wanted to get two, we didn't. A split is great, so now we go back to Vegas with home-ice advantage."
Carolina's Road Edge
Carolina has taken the opposite route into the same spot. The Hurricanes are 6-0 on the road in the playoffs and went 24-12-5 on the road in the regular season, a run that helps explain why they were able to recover from the Game 1 loss and the early hole in Game 2.
The power play finally supplied the break the Hurricanes needed in Game 2. Jordan Staal scored at 15:25 of the third period, and Seth Jarvis finished the comeback at 3:56 of overtime after Carolina entered Game 2 having gone 0-for-2 with one shot on the power play in the first period and 0-for-2 with no shots in Game 1. The Hurricanes arrived with a 12.1 percent power play, going 7-for-58 in the playoffs.
The backdrop makes Game 3 different from a standard split. It is the first time in 108 all-time Stanley Cup finals that both teams have posted multigoal comeback wins in the first two games, and Carolina became the first team in more than 80 years to win a Cup Final game after trailing by multiple goals in the last 10 minutes of regulation. In best-of-7 finals tied 1-1, the Game 3 winner has gone on to take the series 77.4 percent of the time, going 24-7.
That puts real weight on Saturday's first shift, not just the final score. One team leaves Vegas with the control that comes from a 2-1 lead, and the other has to chase a Final that has already flipped twice.
