<\/p>\n
Vegas Golden Knights’ William Karlsson (71) scores a goal past Carolina Hurricanes’ Frederik Andersen (31) during the second period of Game 1 of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup Final series in Raleigh, N.C., Tuesday, June 2, 2026.<\/p>\n
Ben McKeown\/AP Photo\/Ben McKeown<\/p>\n
Vegas Golden Knights’ Tomas Hertl (48) trips over Carolina Hurricanes goaltender Frederik Andersenn (31) during the second period in Game 1 of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup Final series in Raleigh, N.C., Tuesday, June 2, 2026.<\/p>\n
Karl B DeBlaker\/AP Photo\/Karl B DeBlaker<\/p>\n
Vegas Golden Knights’ Pavel Dorofeyev (16) celebrates between Carolina Hurricanes’ Jalen Chatfield (5), Alexander Nikishin (21), and goaltender Frederik Andersen (31) after a goal in the second period of Game 1 of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup Final series in Raleigh, N.C., Tuesday, June 2, 2026.<\/p>\n
Ben McKeown\/AP Photo\/Ben McKeown<\/p>\n
Vegas Golden Knights celebrate a goal by Tomas Hertl, during the third period in Game 1 of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup Final series against the Carolina Hurricanes in Raleigh, N.C., Tuesday, June 2, 2026.<\/p>\n
Karl B DeBlaker\/AP Photo\/Karl B DeBlaker<\/p>\n
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) \u2014 Colton Sissons smiled widely and raved about how much fun it was to play in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
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He and the Vegas Golden Knights traded chances, goals, saves and counterpunches with the Carolina Hurricanes, getting the championship series off to a terrific start. Vegas won a high-scoring, entertaining 5-4 affair that usually would drive an old-school coach like John Tortorella crazy.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI think he enjoyed it,\u201d Sissons said. \u201cObviously the result.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was a game so good even Torts enjoyed it.<\/p>\n
Game 1 had a little bit of everything, from Nikolaj Ehlers scoring 25 seconds in for the Hurricanes and lifting an already riled-up crowd to its feet to each goaltender making big saves to keep the puck out of the net. The only thing missing was the lockdown defense that got these teams to this point, but that only made for a more exciting opener.<\/p>\n
\u201cBoth teams played good defense for certain minutes, other times not,\u201d Tortorella said. \u201cYou just never know what\u2019s going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The goals<\/p>\n
What happened was a lot of scoring from two of the best defensive teams in the playoffs. It was the first Cup final game in history with a goal in the first 30 seconds of each of the first two periods.<\/p>\n
Ehlers scored his first off the rush and second on a breakaway. The two-goal lead lasted all of 80 seconds before Shea Theodore scored, and Ivan Barbashev and William Karlsson put Vegas ahead, rallying from another deficit.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was great from our group to kind of battle back,\u201d Theodore said.<\/p>\n
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Jordan Staal scoring his first goal at this stage of the playoffs since 2009 and breaking older brother Eric\u2019s record for the longest gap between Cup final goals brought the crowd back to life. So did Shayne Gostisbehere tying it with under nine minutes left in regulation.<\/p>\n
With time ticking closer to overtime, the Golden Knights made one more highlight-reel play in a night full of them. Colton Sissons\u2019 backhand pass set up Tomas Hertl \u2014 who also had a rough go the first couple of rounds \u2014 for the go-ahead goal with 3:34 left in regulation.<\/p>\n
The saves<\/p>\n
Long before Sissons and Hertl teamed up on the winner, each guy was denied on a Grade-A scoring chance by Carolina’s Frederik Andersen. At the other end of the rink, Carter Hart made some 10-bell saves of his own.<\/p>\n
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Logan Stankoven got in all alone on a breakaway in the first with a chance to break the game open.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat could\u2019ve been a dagger,” Sissons said.<\/p>\n
Instead, Hart made that save and kept Vegas in the game throughout. His best came with under four minutes left and the score tied, flashing his glove to rob Seth Jarvis, Carolina\u2019s top-line right wing whose snakebit struggle of a run continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe gives us so much confidence,\u201d Sissons said. \u201cWhen we needed him most, he was there.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The drama<\/p>\n
The start of the Cup final quickly got the NHL past a lackluster third round, when Vegas swept Colorado in the West and Carolina bounced back from a rough start against Montreal, winning four in a row to blow through the East final roadblock that had been an issue for so long.<\/p>\n
Fans were buzzing from pregame warmups, and the two teams put on a show worth the hefty price of admission.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought it was a great game from both sides,\u201d Theodore said. \u201cThat\u2019s a loud building to play in front of.”<\/p>\n
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After a ton of excitement between two hockey powerhouses, viewers can only hope for six more games just like this one.<\/p>\n
AP NHL: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/stanley-cup and <\/a>https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nhl<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vegas Golden Knights’ William Karlsson (71) scores a goal past Carolina Hurricanes’ Frederik Andersen (31) during the second…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":589941,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[377],"tags":[5,1259,348,1284,1326,520,794,10617,3494,3492,10615,10616,62543,48059,10019,1177,2823,65641,1261,1599],"class_list":["post-589959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hockey","tag-hockey","tag-ivan-barbashev","tag-john-tortorella","tag-jordan-staal","tag-las-vegas","tag-logan-stankoven","tag-nikolaj-ehlers","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","tag-product-32002-ap-online-hockey-news","tag-product-32562-ap-online-other-sports-news","tag-product-33351-ap-online-analysis","tag-product-40798-ap-nevada-sports-only","tag-product-40804-ap-north-carolina-sports-only","tag-seth-jarvis","tag-shayne-gostisbehere","tag-stanley-cup-final-game-1","tag-tomas-hertl","tag-william-karlsson"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589959","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=589959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/589941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}