![\"Vegas](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1780456693_644_image.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\nRALEIGH, N.C. \u2014 Tomas Hertl took a backhand pass from Colton Sisson and beat Frederik Anderson from the slot with 3:24 left in the third period, lifting the Vegas Golden Knights past the Carolina Hurricanes 5-4 in Tuesday night\u2019s opener of the Stanley Cup Final.<\/p>\n
Hertl\u2019s finish off Sisson\u2019s feed from the right faceoff circle broke a 4-4 tie and pushed the Golden Knights ahead in an entertaining back-and-forth start on the sport\u2019s biggest stage. It marked Vegas\u2019 seventh straight win of the playoffs, starting with the last two games of the six-game second-round series against Anaheim and then the shocking four-game sweep of the Presidents\u2019 Trophy-winning Colorado Avalanche.<\/p>\n
That series included Vegas erasing a 3-0 deficit to take Game 3, and now the Golden Knights have followed by rallying from another multigoal deficit — this time 2-0 in the opening period — against the team that finished second only to the Avs in the regular season.<\/p>\n
Game 2 of the best-of-seven series is Thursday in Raleigh, with Vegas already having taken home-ice away from the Hurricanes as it chases a second Cup title in four seasons.<\/p>\n
Shea Theodore, Ivan Barbashev, William Karlsson and Brett Howden also scored for Vegas, with Howden\u2019s postseason-leading 11th score giving the Golden Knights a 4-3 lead just 1:21 into the third period. Carter Hart finished with 23 saves.<\/p>\n
Nikolaj Ehlers scored twice for the Hurricanes, the first coming 25 seconds into the game when he got loose and a rush and blasted one past Hart from the left side on the game\u2019s first shot. He followed with a breakaway that gave Carolina a 2-0 lead and sent a charged home crowd into an eruption in the team\u2019s first Stanley Cup Final game in two decades.<\/p>\n
Jordan Staal and Shayne Gostisbehere each scored tying goals after Vegas had pushed to a lead, with Gostisbehere skating in clean on the left side to blast one past Hart at 11:19 of the third period and tie it once more at 4.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Vegas Golden Knights right wing Cole Smith (22) celebrates after scoring against the Colorado Avalanche during the third period in Game 4 of the Western Conference finals NHL hockey Stanley Cup playoff series Tuesday, May 26, 2026, in Las Vegas. Credit: AP\/John Locher<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RALEIGH, N.C. \u2014 Tomas Hertl took a backhand pass from Colton Sisson and beat Frederik Anderson from the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":589857,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5116],"tags":[193,29,192,144,5277,5,4,3722,1105],"class_list":["post-589856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-colorado-avalanche","tag-avalanche","tag-carolina-hurricanes","tag-colorado","tag-colorado-avalanche","tag-coloradoavalanche","tag-hockey","tag-nhl","tag-top-ap-news","tag-wires-bot"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116684017242883897","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=589856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/589857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}