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This Stanley Cup Final between the Carolina Hurricanes and Vegas Golden Knights has been one of the wildest in recent memory, if not ever.
After four thrillers, including two insane games in Vegas, the series shifted back to Raleigh for Game 5, with the two teams knotted at 2-2.
This was one of the slower starts in a series filled with quick strikes, but one thing that’s been constant throughout? Self-inflicted penalties.
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The Hurricanes were whistled for one of those a few minutes before the halfway point of the first period when Nikolaj Ehlers shot a puck over the glass, and it didn’t take Vegas long to make them pay.
Golden Knights forward Pavel Dorofeyev capitalized on the ensuing power play, burying Vegas’ first shot of the night off a terrific feed from Jack Eichel.
However, just minutes later, Hurricanes captain Jordan Staal — who is having the Cup Final of his life — extended his scoring streak to five games on a slick redirection off a pass from Ehlers (redemption!) to even things up.
That tied the record for the longest goal streak in Stanley Cup Final history. Staal had just two goals this postseason before the series started.
Carolina opened the second period killing off another penalty — another delay-of-game infraction, if you can believe that — but it was back-to-back penalties for Vegas that led to a Hurricanes goal.
Just one second after the Golden Knights killed off a Jeremy Lauzon roughing penalty, Brayden McNabb took an ill-advised cross-checking penalty to send Carolina back on the power play.
That’s when Andrei Svechnikov gave the Canes a 2-1 lead.
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Svechnikov was one of the big guns for the Canes who needed to find the goal column. The other? Sebastian Aho, and he did just that only a few minutes later.
As if things weren’t bad enough for the Golden Knights in the second frame, one of their key players, William Karlsson, exited the game and did not return.
On to the third, where the story continued to be the Golden Knights taking bad penalties, something that is wildly out of character for them.
This time, it was their captain Mark Stone who clipped Carolina’s Jalen Chatfield with a high stick. Worse yet, he caught him enough to draw blood, earning himself a double minor.
One that the Hurricanes converted with Svechnikov scoring his second of the evening to hand them a 4-1 lead.
If you have watched any of this series, you’ll know that nothing comes easy, and not long after Carolina extended their lead, Dorofeyev potted his second of the game to cut the deficit to two.
Then, in what has happened in just about every game this series, that goal kicked off a feverish Vegas push that resulted in several scoring chances.
Carolina held on, but with just 2:13 left, Nikolaj Ehlers was whistled for delay-of-game.
Vegas then pulled the goalie to go on a 6-on-4 power play.
The Golden Knights set up and got some great chances, including one for Tomas Hertl who was robbed by Bussi — who had 22 saves on 24 shots — with 80 seconds left in regulation.
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The late penalty kill gave the Canes carte blanche to take 200-foot shots at the empty net, and that helped to bleed time off the clock and help them hang on to that 4-2 lead.
Carolina now leads the series 3-2 as it shifts back to Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena on Sunday, where the Hurricanes will have a chance to clinch their second Stanley Cup in franchise history.