Hurricanes, Golden Knights writing new chapters in compelling Final

Legendary hockey reporter Stan Fischler writes a weekly scrapbook for NHL.com. Known as "The Hockey Maven," Fischler's insight and wit appear here every Wednesday. With the Stanley Cup Final approaching Game 5, the calendar turns back to the Final in 2006 and 2023, won by the Carolina Hurricanes and Vegas Golden Knights, respectively.

Looking ahead to Game 5 of this pulsating Stanley Cup Final at Lenovo Center in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Thursday (8 p.m. ET; ABC, SN, TVAS, CBC), I'm reminded why the Vegas Golden Knights and Carolina Hurricanes are playing hockey that's been so intense, so melodramatic, and how they're writing new chapters in pursuit of a championship. 

"Nothing is permanent in this business until you have the Stanley Cup perched on the trophy shelf," said Tommy Ivan, coach of Stanley Cup champion Detroit Red Wings in 1950, 1952, 1954, who entered the Hockey Hall of Fame with the Class of 1974.

The Hurricanes, seeking their first Stanley Cup title since 2006, tied the best-of-7 series 2-2 with a 5-3 win at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on Tuesday.

Rod Brind'Amour is back in the Final as Hurricanes coach 20 years since he was captain of their first Cup-winning team in 2006, when they defeated the Edmonton Oilers 3-1 in Game 7. They were helped by Justin Williams, "Mr. Game 7," previously unheralded heroes Aaron Ward and Frantisek Kaberle, and 22-year-old goalie Cam Ward, voted winner of the Conn Smythe Trophy as most valuable player of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

The crescendo at RBC Center (now Lenovo Center) peaked among the crowd of nearly 19,000 once Justin Williams' empty-net goal at 18:59 of the third period sealed the victory. Repeated chants of "We want the Cup!" could almost be heard throughout Dixie. On that night, Raleigh turned into a hockey town.

The Hurricanes have yet to miss the playoffs in a full season since Tom Dundon acquired a majority stake in the franchise from Peter Karmanos on Jan. 11, 2018. Brind'Amour, hired May 8, 2018, can become the seventh person in NHL history, and first since Toe Blake with the Montreal Canadiens in 1956, to win the Stanley Cup with the same franchise as a player and a coach.

"The whole point when I bought the team is you wanted something you could be proud of," Dundon told NHL.com on May 30, one day after the Hurricanes advanced with a 6-1 win against the Canadiens in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Final. "You want to have a product you can be proud of, and you want to do things in a way that you know the brand is something special. When I bought the team, we had some work to do there.

"We were very fortunate that we hired Rod and had some good players there and then we kept adding to it."

No less stunning has been the Golden Knights under the ownership of Bill Foley. They celebrated a Stanley Cup title with a 9-2 win against the Florida Panthers in Game 5 of the 2023 Final, seven years after becoming an NHL franchise. Vegas was galvanized by Jonathan Marchessault, William Karlsson, Reilly Smith, Brayden McNabb and Shea Theodore, five of the six original Golden Knights and coach Bruce Cassidy's self-described "Misfits."

Jack Eichel joined them when he was acquired in a trade with the Buffalo Sabres on Nov. 4, 2021. His first trip to the NHL playoffs ended with postseason highs in assists (20) and points (26) and then lifting the Cup.

"I think you can take lessons from experience that you've had, whether it be playing big games in the past," Eichel told NHL.com on May 29. "Obviously a lot of guys were here for that '23 run, and there's guys in this room that have played big games in other scenarios. I think you draw from those.

"But I think every day, every series, every game, whatever you want to say, has its own story. So, you try to focus on that."

The Golden Knights and Hurricanes are fortified by strong administrative support, led respectively by general managers Kelly McCrimmon and Eric Tulsky. The latter is a former hockey blogger who owns a PhD in chemistry. 

A couple of Carolina's additions before the season, forward Nikolaj Ehlers and defenseman K'Andre Miller, have emerged as key playoff performers.

"We've had really good players and, obviously, Ehlers and Miller are huge additions and really (Logan) Stankoven and (Jackson) Blake weren't around, too (before last season), and (Taylor) Hall," Dundon said. "But we've always had really good players and really good culture and a great coach. Just this time we got a better result."

NHL.com senior writer Tom Gulitti and staff writer Mike Zeisberger contributed to this report