Hurricanes close – Carolina’s Jordan Staal warned that championships come down to patience and imposing your will. After Thursday’s Game 5 comeback, the Hurricanes delivered again with a 4-2 win over the Vegas Golden Knights, tightening the Stanley Cup Final to one victory apiec
RALEIGH, N.C. — Eleven days ago, before the Stanley Cup Final began in this city that now seems to vibrate with every whistle, Jordan Staal sat calmly in his chair and talked like a captain who’d already seen every kind of storm.
“Who does it better and who stays patient long enough in their game, I think, is the biggest thing,” the 37-year-old said.
He knew the disruption was coming: momentum swings, costly mistakes, bad penalties, tough injuries, even coaching calls that can tilt an entire series. Staal’s prescription was simple enough to sound like routine — until you watch it happen in real time.
“It’s a matter of imposing your will until they crack and call uncle,” he added. “The team that holds strong as long as they can and stays true to what they’re trying to do is going to have a better chance of winning.”
Now, with the Hurricanes leaving Raleigh rocking after Thursday’s pivotal Game 5 comeback, Carolina is closer to the championship than it has been at any point in this post-season chase. Vegas, the team that thrives on urgency, is feeling cracks it didn’t need to feel earlier.
For the first time all post-season, the Vegas Golden Knights are showing hints they might crack — but they certainly aren’t quitting.
“I’m gonna leave my clothes here, that’s for sure,” Vegas coach John Tortorella declared about the possibility of having to return to Raleigh again. “They’ll be in the hotel.”
The message landed because it was backed by reality on the ice. Game 6, the setup says, could decide everything without the need for a seventh game. Carolina believes it can keep taking the temperature of this series downward — and it believes it’s allowed to climb.
“We want to be aggressive and tight. And when you’re tight like that, it doesn’t really give opponents a lot of time and space to make those plays,” defenceman Sean Walker said. “Sometimes guys aren’t expecting players to be so tight.”
Thursday’s Hurricanes win set the stage, and the follow-up did too: Carolina beat Vegas 4-2. Staal framed it the way captains do when they don’t want to jinx momentum.
“Lookin’ more and more like Hurricane hockey. And yet, we got to keep ridin’,” he said, after the well-conditioned home team tightened the game with speed and discipline. “I’m hoping leads into a 4-2 series win.”
Carolina’s version of “tight” has been visible in the details. The Hurricanes have suffered one less injury. are dressing the better goalie. and their relentless pressure has led to at least four goals per night. The source of offense might not be a single star’s signature. but the effect has been consistent — the opponent ends up defending too long.
The adjustments have helped, too. Coach Rod Brind’Amour made subtle but key changes. with the right-wing flip of Jordan Martinook and Seth Jarvis among the most noticeable. The power play struck twice Thursday. and it carried a sense of rhythm into Game 5 — turning second-period struggles into second-period encores of “Petey Pablo.”.
Andrei Svechnikov and Sebastian Aho, previously chilly in stretches, are getting hotter as the series deepens.
Svechnikov admitted what this run has cost him mentally.
“He’s been putting a whack of pressure on himself lately,” the forward described after another big night. Through Games 1 and 4, he mustered just two points and went shotless in two of those games. Before Game 5, he couldn’t even sleep.
“This is biggest win in my life,” Svechnikov said. “But thank God we won that game. We’ve got one more in us.”
His second goal arrived in a sharp, high-leverage moment — a double-five-hole snipe that slid through the wickets of both defender Jeremy Lauzon, then Carter Hart. Aho’s contribution capped it: a blade-to-tape-to-roof conversion.
Walker explained why those finishes matter when the series is this close.
“That’s the reason why Aho is one of the best players in the league, and why he’s been so successful for so long and in the playoffs,” Walker said. “And when he’s playing his game and doing things like that, it’s special to watch.”
Still, the path to a parade is rarely straight, and Carolina is not ignoring the potholes either. Vegas has questions in net, up the middle, and on the penalty kill after Game 5, where the Golden Knights used penalties too often. Tortorella’s team knows it will have to respond — and it will.
But Carolina can taste the cracks now, which changes how it plays the next shifts. Brind’Amour gave the clearest version of that belief when he said, “There’s still another level that we’re gonna need to get to,” to “find that next one.”
If the Hurricanes reach it, there may be a very awkward “lost and found” in downtown Raleigh: Tortorella joked about leaving clothes in the hotel, a reminder that this series has started to feel like it’s shortening the margin for error.
Carolina’s goalie, Carter Hart, is part of the story in a way that’s hard to ignore. His Stanley Cup Final save percentage is .856. He’s the only goalie to give up at least four goals in each of the Final’s first five games. The workload is building fast, even with overtime starts included.
The choice to stick with Hart has not wavered. Asked whether Tortorella considered making a switch for the third period, the coach snapped: “Oh, for Christ. That could be the stupidest question I’ve heard.”
Tortorella does not plan to gamble on a backup now. Adin Hill has not played a hockey game since April 9 and hasn’t won a game since March. Even so, the Hurricanes believe they can keep forcing the next decision, the next adjustment, the next breath.
The physical toll showed up with William Karlsson. who suffered an apparent left wrist/forearm injury when getting crunched into the board by Walker in the second period. Karlsson didn’t take another shift, and no update on his health was provided postgame. The score was 1-1 before Karlsson left, and Vegas’s centre depth couldn’t hang.
Walker said the collision wasn’t accidental.
“Any time you can lay a hit on somebody, it’s going to take its toll and wear them down,” he said. “I’m just trying to do my part. We have a lot of guys that are really physical, and it’s a key to our success.”
The night also carried a milestone for Carolina captain Jordan Staal. He became the first player since 1956 (Jean Beliveau) to score goals in each of the first five games of a Cup Final. Maurice Richard (1951) and Cyclone Taylor (1918) are the only other players to accomplish the feat.
“Yeah, it’s good company,” Staal allowed. “But I’m looking for wins.”
Even the background noise around this series has taken on meaning. Mike Commodore’s “resplendently berobed” performance and flailing Sideshow Bob hairdo has become part of the storyline, especially in the middle of nemesis Mike Babcock making news during the Cup Final.
Frederik Andersen’s situation adds another layer. He hasn’t spoken publicly nor practiced with his teammates since getting pulled midway through Game 3. He has hit the ice a couple times alone and is said to be healthy. Because of how necessary that goalie break became, an EBUG was recalled: Amir Miftakhov, an AHLer from the Chicago Wolves.
Carolina’s farm team is preparing to face the Toronto Marlies in the Calder Cup Finals, which begins Friday in Chicago. Miftakhov, not Andersen, was reportedly Carolina’s Game 5 EBUG.
All of it lands heavier with Andersen’s grief over friend and agent Claude Lemieux’s sudden death — a reminder that hockey runs on emotion, not just systems.
For now, though, the emotion in Raleigh is straightforward: Carolina has the belief that patience can crack an opponent. Vegas is still standing. Tortorella still plans like the hotel clothes might be needed.
But with the Hurricanes within one win of a championship, the question driving every shift is the one Staal set down before the circus started: who stays true long enough to be the team that finally gets to hoist it.
Carolina Hurricanes Vegas Golden Knights Stanley Cup Final Jordan Staal Carter Hart Frederik Andersen Andrei Svechnikov Sebastian Aho Sean Walker Rod Brind’Amour John Tortorella