Despite an early Nikolaj Ehlers scoring surge, defensive lapses and missed assignments cost Carolina Game 1 as the Vegas Golden Knights stormed back to seize a series lead.
It isn't unfamiliar territory for the Carolina Hurricanes, who now find themselves in a 1-0 hole for the second straight series, but this time, there's not a convenient excuse to fall back on.
Against the Montreal Canadiens, the Hurricanes could say they were just mentally not ready for the pace of play following an unprecedented 11-day break, but that isn't so much the case now.
The Hurricanes dropped Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final 5-4 to the Vegas Golden Knights in a high-scoring, back-and-forth affair.
After a great opening period, the Canes were outplayed for the final 40 minutes, losing puck battles, blowing assignments and ultimately just making too many mistakes at crucial moments.
"We didn’t handle the pressure particularly well," said Carolina coach Rod Brind'Amour. "And sometimes there wasn't pressure and we kind of made a few poor decisions with the puck and they capitalized.
The Hurricanes had an electric start, jumping out to a 2-0 lead early on.
Nikolaj Ehlers blew the roof off of the arena just 25 seconds into the game, stripping Shea Theodore of the puck at the defensive blueline and taking it all the way up ice before rifling it between the glove and blocker of Vegas netminder Carter Hart.
Ehlers would strike again a bit later as Jalen Chatfield sent him off on a breakaway, which the Dane finished off on the backhand and through the five-hole.
"There were some good things we did, and the game was there," said Jordan Staal.
Vegas would answer back though as a Theodore shot from the point ricocheted off of Eric Robinson's knee and in past Frederik Andersen and then to start the second period, it was all Golden Knights.
Vegas found the equalizer less than 30 seconds in with Ivan Barbashev finding open space in the slot and then less than five minutes after that, William Karlsson would give Vegas the lead unmarked in front of the Canes' net.
"That's a good team," Staal said. "I thought they just played a little bit better than us. They executed their game plan and were aggressive on their forecheck and played in our end and they buried their chances when they had them
Carolina would tie it back up late in the second as K'Andre Miller caught a clearing attempt at the blueline and then fed Jordan Staal for the tying goal.
But again, the Golden Knights had an answer.
After killing off a penalty to start the third period, Chatfield lost the race with Brett Howden to the backdoor and once again, the Canes were trailing.
The Canes were in a rut, and things looked grim after yet another squandered power play, but Shayne Gostisbehere came through with the equalizer late into the third.
But as quickly as he gave Carolina life, he was the one who ended it, losing Tomas Hertl off of the wall for the eventual game winner.
"I took a breather for a second and it went right to their guy,' Gostisbehere said. "That's how quick it can happen. It was definitely on me. Just took a breather for a second."
Carolina will have to regroup and clean up the defense if they want to get back into this series with Game 2 puck drop scheduled for Thursday.
"It's one game," said Nikolaj Ehlers. "Obviously we'd rather be up 1-0, but there's six games to go. We're fine with taking this to seven if we need to."
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