Game 5 was the most complete performance from a team in Stanley Cup Final
The Carolina Hurricanes are one more win away from capturing their second Stanley Cup championship in franchise history after a 4-2 win over the Vegas Golden Knights in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final on Thursday.
After a series full of blown leads and drastic twists and turns, the Hurricanes’ Game 5 victory much more closely resembled a typical NHL postseason contest.
That’s mostly because Carolina seemed to finally play to its smothering identity, limiting quality scoring chances and getting saves from the suddenly-hot Brandon Bussi when they do give up an opportunity. It also helps that star forwards Andrei Svechnikov and Sebastian Aho got on the scoresheet after being held mostly in check all series.
On Friday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk was joined by Jonny Lazarus to discuss how the Hurricanes were able to push the Golden Knights to the brink by delivering the best all-around game either team has played in this Stanley Cup Final.
Tyler Yaremchuk: I’ll just throw you this one as kind of an underhand lob to kick off our conversation. Was last night the most complete performance a team’s had in this Stanley Cup Final?
Jonny Lazarus: Yeah, a thousand percent. I think the last four periods of this series has been all Carolina. The way they shut down Vegas in the third in Game 4, the way they carried that into Game 5, and even the first period I thought was a little bit more even. The rest of the game I thought was mostly Carolina. The mistakes Carolina made, you know, weren’t so drastic. I feel like Vegas had a hard time getting on the inside, and whenever they did, Bussi came up big. That’s kind of been the feeling this morning, right? It’s like which team was going to get to their game first, and it feels like Carolina has now done that. But that said, you know Vegas has a push back in them, right? It’s going to be tough without William Karlsson, but you know there’s going to be something there coming Sunday night.
You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode below…