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The Carolina Hurricanes hit the jackpot in Las Vegas.
For the first time in two decades, the Canes are bringing the Stanley Cup to Raleigh after taking down the Vegas Golden Knights, 3-0, in Game 6 on Sunday night.
It took just over three minutes for the Hurricanes to drown out the rowdy Vegas crowd, as one-time Hart Trophy winner Taylor Hall found the back of the net for the early lead.
Offense was slow for quite a while, but with just under seven minutes to go in the second, it was Jackson Blake who gave the Canes a 2-0 lead. Vegas did themselves hardly any favors in the second period, recording just three shots on goal.
This series had been no stranger to blown leads, but those were on the Golden Knights side. This Carolina team was not letting go of anything, and proved as such by killing a key Vegas power play midway through the third.
Vegas pulled Carter Hart with about three minutes to go, officially entering desperation mode, but nothing worked, and Nikolaj Ehlers scored an empty-netter to start the party. Rookie goaltender Brandon Bussi continued to stand on his head and preserved the shutout.
One of those blown leads was a 4-0 lead in Game 3 that Vegas absolved with a double-overtime goal. The other, though, may just be the difference in this series.
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Bussi, who played in less than half the Canes’ games in the regular season, did not see the ice at all in the playoffs until taking Frederik Andersen’s spot in Game 3. In the biggest game of his life, he stepped up
In Game 2, the Golden Knights were up 2-0 with 10 minutes left in the third period, but Carolina scored three goals to take the lead. Vegas tied it to force overtime, but the extra period did not go their way.
Rod Brind-Amour became the 14th person to win a Stanley Cup as both a player and a head coach (not including player-coaches), and the first to do so since Larry Robinson in 2000 with the New Jersey Devils.
He also is just the seventh person to win the Cup coaching the team he won it with as a player. No one had done that since Toe Blake did it with the Montreal Canadiens 70 years ago.
It’s a long-awaited breakthrough for the Hurricanes, who made the playoffs for the eighth consecutive season after missing it in each of the previous nine. In this span, they had lost three conference finals and three semifinals, despite constantly being a common pick to win it all.
This time, though, they finally battled for Lord’s Stanley and did everything they could to snatch it.
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