Brandon Bussi’s brilliance and a resurgent power play silenced the doubters, as Carolina stifled Vegas to overcome their second-period demons and move within striking distance of glory.
In a win that was an almost perfect encapsulation of irony, the Carolina Hurricanes guffawed at the naysayers to move one win away from enshrining their name in history.
In many ways, the 4-2, Game 5 win felt like the ultimate middle finger to a lot of the outside noise that had been surrounding the team all series.
After what had been a wide-open series, Carolina flipped the script on Thursday, shutting down Vegas with some classic Hurricanes hockey.
The Hurricanes conceded only two goals in the entire contest, the lowest allowed goals total of the series, and Brandon Bussi played a big part in that.
The 27-year-old rookie netminder stopped 23 shots in the win and turned aside 2.29 goals above expected for his second career playoff win in his second career playoff start.
"He's been like this the whole season," said Nikolaj Ehlers. "To be able to come in like Bussi did, not having played for two months and then play two games in the Final, and be as calm as he is and make the saves that he has is incredible."
On the other side, Carter Hart conceded four goals for the fifth straight game, the worst stretch of play in Stanley Cup Final history.
Carolina also had their best second period of the series, outscoring Vegas 2-0 to set themselves up for the victory.
The second period had long been the Hurricanes' kryptonite in the four games heading into Thursday, as they had been outscored 9-1 in the middle frame during that span, but they finally found a way to make the second period theirs.
"There's certain segments of the game that you’ve got to be better at," Brind'Amour said. "I think we needed to improve that during the second period, but the game itself, we’ve just got to keep playing the right way. I think we did that tonight in the second period and the third period."
The team rode to victory though on the back of big showings from the power play, which went 2-for-5, and the top guys they had been waiting on all series to finally show up.
Andrei Svechnikov found the back of the net twice on the power play and Sebastian Aho scored the eventual game-winner with his first of the series.
"It’s big players showing up at big times," said Sean Walker "You know, those were huge goals for us tonight. I think if they're scoring for us, we're definitely doing things right, and we're gonna have success."
In addition, Jordan Staal scored for the fifth straight game, becoming the first player to score in the first five games of a Stanley Cup Final since 1956, Nikolaj Ehlers had three apples while Shayne Gostisbehere had a pair.
The Hurricanes have a chance at history now, but it's going to take their best effort in Game 6 to pull it off.
"It's probably good to have a couple days in between, to be honest, because there's a lot going on now and it's not ideal," Brind'Amour said. "So we’ve got to get that all figured out and then get ready to play a game because we know how hard it's going to be and refocus. But I don't think it'll be too hard to focus this group."
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