{"id":643714,"date":"2026-08-16T01:48:44","date_gmt":"2026-08-16T01:48:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/643714\/"},"modified":"2026-08-16T01:48:44","modified_gmt":"2026-08-16T01:48:44","slug":"john-tortorella-likes-where-the-golden-knights-stand-in-a-tied-stanley-cup-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/643714\/","title":{"rendered":"John Tortorella likes where the Golden Knights stand in a tied Stanley Cup Final"},"content":{"rendered":"

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) \u2014 Less than 12 hours after his team blew a two-goal lead<\/a> and lost in overtime, coach John Tortorella<\/a> has no issues with where his Vegas Golden Knights stand in the Stanley Cup Final against Carolina that is now all tied up at 1-1.<\/p>\n

In true \u201cTorts\u201d fashion, he is not explaining why.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like our team, where we\u2019re at,\u201d Tortorella said Friday. \u201cWe\u2019re good. We\u2019re ready to play. I like a lot of things about what\u2019s gone on in the first two games. I\u2019m not giving you specifics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tortorella and the Golden Knights return home for Game 3 against the Hurricanes on Saturday night with plenty of lessons to learn from. It\u2019s the first time in NHL history that each of the first two games of a Cup final featured a team erasing a multigoal deficit to win.<\/p>\n

Vegas trailed 2-0 in the opener and won 5-4, then led 2-0 on Thursday night until past the midway point of the third period. After Carolina scored three times in just over five minutes, it took captain Mark Stone tying it 6 on 5 with goaltender Carter Hart pulled for an extra skater to force overtime.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have pretty good control, and then some minor mistakes and it ends up in the back of the net,\u201d center William Karlsson said. \u201cJust kind of ride it out all game long and hopefully not give Carolina any chances to come back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Teammates credited the crowd in Raleigh for aiding the Hurricanes\u2019 comeback, and with that came an appreciation to be playing the next two games at the arena on The Strip nicknamed the Fortress. The Golden Knights have only been in existence for nine years, but their home-ice advantage quickly became one of the best in the league.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe feed off the crowd,\u201d forward Keegan Kolesar said. \u201cYou can tell from (Game 2), once things started going their way, they\u2019re playing a lot faster, a lot harder when their crowd is involved. Go back to even the COVID year, it makes you realize how important fans are because when they\u2019re not in that building, it can be pretty miserable, so really excited to have that back in our building.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Knights are 6-2 at home during the playoffs. They are also 7-3 on the road. <\/p>\n

Tortorella has preached consistency since taking over when Bruce Cassidy was fired in late March, and that applies to not changing much depending on where games take place.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no difference,\u201d Tortorella said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to play. We know how to play. We know how we want to play.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carolina went a perfect 6-0 on the road through the first three rounds, including the Eastern Conference Final at hockey-mad Montreal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think we really care, to be honest, where we play,\u201d said Hurricanes goaltender Frederik Andersen, who has a 1.27 goals-against average and .931 save percentage away from home in the playoffs this spring. \u201cWe\u2019re really just focused on our foundation in our game, and that\u2019s really what sets us up for success.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lingering over Vegas is the potential absence of top-pairing defenseman Brayden McNabb<\/a>, who took an 87.3 mph slap shot to the face 11 minutes into Game 2 and did not return. If McNabb is unable to play in Game 3, fellow left-handed shooter Ben Hutton or righty Kaedan Korczak are likely replacements.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NHL: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/stanley-cup<\/a> and https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nhl<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) \u2014 Less than 12 hours after his team blew a two-goal lead and lost in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643715,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5129],"tags":[2882,1598,762,29,88,1239,149,5317,5,348,3701,3710,1040,1279,13257,4,292,2668,1274,43,14,300,74,39,5316,1599],"class_list":["post-643714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-vegas-golden-knights","tag-ben-hutton","tag-brayden-mcnabb","tag-bruce-cassidy","tag-carolina-hurricanes","tag-carter-hart","tag-frederik-andersen","tag-golden-knights","tag-goldenknights","tag-hockey","tag-john-tortorella","tag-kaedan-korczak","tag-keegan-kolesar","tag-mark-stone","tag-nc-state-wire","tag-nevada","tag-nhl","tag-nhl-hockey","tag-north-carolina","tag-nv-state-wire","tag-sports","tag-stanley-cup","tag-stanley-cup-finals","tag-vegas","tag-vegas-golden-knights","tag-vegasgoldenknights","tag-william-karlsson"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/117102674207514254","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643714","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=643714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643714\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}