Tomas Hertl Stuns Hurricanes With 5-4 Finale Coupe Stanley Win
finale coupe stanley opened with a swing and ended with one. Tomas Hertl scored at 16:36 of the third period, and the Vegas Golden Knights beat the Carolina Hurricanes 5-4 in Game 1 Tuesday night in Raleigh.
Vegas overturned a 0-2 hole in the middle of the first period and left with the early edge in the final. The Golden Knights had already come through a four-game series win over the Colorado Avalanche, then carried that momentum into a game against a Hurricanes team that finished the season with 18 more points.
Hertl Finishes Vegas Surge
Hertl delivered the winner after the Golden Knights had spent most of the night chasing the score. His goal at 16:36 of the third period settled a game that kept changing hands and gave Vegas the first win of the series.
William Karlsson supplied the third Vegas goal, finishing a play started by Mitch Marner from behind the net. That sequence mattered because it brought the Knights fully back into the game after the early deficit and gave them the opening they needed to keep pressing.
McNabb And Theodore Drive It
Brayden McNabb and Shea Theodore each finished with three points for Vegas. For a Stanley Cup Final game, that kind of production from two defensemen is rare; it was only the third time in final history that two defensemen from the same team each had three points in the same game.
The previous cases came in 1985, when Paul Coffey and Charlie Huddy did it for Edmonton in Game 4, and in 1994, when Brian Leetch and Sergei Zubov did it for the New York Rangers in Game 4. Frederik Andersen faced the Vegas attack on the other side as Carolina tried to hold the lead it had built early.
Raleigh Starts At 5-4
The result gives Vegas a 1-0 lead in the Stanley Cup Final and a road win against the team that had the stronger regular-season point total. Game 1 also showed how quickly the series can tilt when Vegas turns a deficit into a lead before the first period is over.
For the Hurricanes, the opening loss leaves them needing a response after letting a two-goal advantage slip in front of home ice. For Vegas, the job now is simpler: protect the edge it earned in one of the highest-scoring Final openers in recent memory.
