It’s often hard to ascertain the difficulty of a job at the outset. Problems and issues may not arise until the undertaking begins.
The Vegas Golden Knights and Carolina Hurricanes have now taken measure of one another, and it doesn’t appear picking a champion in the 2026 Stanley Cup Final is going to be easy.
Both sides have thrown and landed a jab. The teams appear evenly matched and equally determined.
Vegas made a two-goal deficit disappear to take Game 1 in a back-and-forth game. Game 2 saw Carolina claw back from down a pair of goals to earn an overtime victory. The series now moves to Vegas locked at one win apiece in the race to fourvictories.
The Golden Knights will now have home ice advantage for the next two games at T-Mobile Arena. The Hurricanes didn’t like their play in Game 1 but found another gear late in Game 2. Vegas has yet to play to its level.
The Golden Knights’ power play hasn’t clicked yet in the series and its vaunted penalty kill allowed two goals against late in Game 2.
It’s one thing to say a team hasn’t played it’s best but what the other team is doing to prevent it is also part of the equation.
Both of sides have a plan that they are attempting to execute. The team that can play their way for longer stretches usually has the edge.
"The sport of hockey is funny that way. I think that's why we all love it. It can go either way at any time. Yeah, I feel like we hadpretty good control in Game 2 and then made some minor mistakes and it ends up in the back of the net,” said Golden Knights center William Karlsson. “Just kind of ride it out all game long and hopefully not give Carolina any chances to come back. But it's hockey. It's a game of mistakes, and it's bound to happen. It’s fine, it is what it is. Obviously, we would have loved to win that game, but we didn't. It's in the past. Nothing we can change, so now we just look ahead."
Vegas winger Keegan Kolesar agreed with Karlsson and believes Vegas has a path to more success.
“Yeah, absolutely. Just keep advancing the puck and good things will happen for us,” Kolesar said. “It's a team that preys on turnovers so they're always going to try to hang around and get whatever they can."
Fans on both sides may find the back-and-forth nature of the series so far to be a bit stressful but for Colton Sissons, it’s what he signed up for as a hockey player.
"It's been a lot of fun so far. Some good hockey games, two teams going at it, and some lead changes. Yeah, that's playoff hockey right there, two good teams going at it," said the veteran center. “It’s difficult not to think about hockey and the Final. We're all here for a reason and that reason is to win the Stanley Cup, so it's constantly on your mind what you can do better the next game. We have a chance here to reset. Obviously, it's a quick turnaround with the travel back home and playing in not that many hours, so we've got to do a good job of just resetting and recovering the best we can to have a really good start at home."
The crowds in Carolina brought passion and noise to the first two games. Kolesar expects the same from his home fans.
"I mean, these are intense crowds. You saw it yesterday with the lead change right there. I haven't heard a crowd that loud probably since the whiteout (in Winnipeg) a couple years ago. So, very excited to be going home to our crowd,” he said. “Obviously, we got the first one, which is great. We wanted to get two. We didn't. So, now we go back to Vegas with home-ice advantage. We feed off the crowd. You can tell from the game yesterday, once things started going their way, they're 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're not in that building it can be pretty miserable. So, really excited to have that back in our building."
Kolesar grew up playing hockey in Manitoba against Brett Howden who is leading the playoffs with 13 goals.
"I've been saying it for years, played against him since I was 12 years old, the kid is a gamer,” said Kolesar. “He's had a great opportunity to play with two tremendous players as well and he's just running with it. He's found his rhythm right now and it's awesome to see."
