Golden Knights seek solutions heading into must-win Game 6 of Cup Final

RALEIGH, N.C. -- The Vegas Golden Knights have two days between games to figure out a way to save their season.

Easier said than done.

Truth be told, Vegas will need every precious minute of that time to come up with possible solutions to the accruing pile of questions facing them heading into Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final against the Carolina Hurricanes on Sunday (8 p.m. ET; ABC, SN, TVAS, CBC).

First off, what will the revamped lines look like in the expected absence of forward William Karlsson, who was holding his left arm/wrist when he left in the second period of the Golden Knights' 4-2 loss in Game 5 Thursday?

Secondly, what must the Golden Knights do to shore up their special teams after allowing two power-play goals in that defeat while scoring just one themselves?

Last, but certainly not least, how do they find a way to tighten up defensively in front of goalie Carter Hart, who became the first goalie in NHL history to allow at least four goals in each of the first five games of a Stanley Cup Final?

Those are the dilemmas coach John Tortorella and his staff are dealing with in a situation in which their team trails the best-of-7 series 3-2 and must win the next two games to keep their Stanley Cup aspirations alive.

Tortorella offered no update on Karlsson on Friday morning, about 11 hours after saying in his post-game press conference that, "He's not going to be with us probably." 

Moving forward Mitch Marner to center, where he played for a chunk of the regular season while Karlsson was out with a lower-body injury, remains an option, although the coach was not about to publicly commit to such a decision.

One move that did work in Game 5 was reuniting Pavel Dorofeyev, who had been moved down to the third line, with Jack Eichel on the No. 1 unit. Dorofeyev responded with two goals to end a seven-game scoring funk, a trend Tortorella hopes continues.

"You hope so," he said of the 25-year-old, who had a career-high 37 goals during the regular season. "He's been a little quiet. He scored a couple of goals and, knowing him, he gets streaky, right? And so, it'd be a good time for him to keep moving in that direction.

"As for scoring goals, I gave him some good minutes. Popping him up on that line with Jack seemed to work. We've got to figure out the health of our team and what the lines are here in the next couple of days but hopefully he keeps pushing in that area."

Dorfeyev's first goal, which opened the scoring at 6:52 of the first period, came on the power play. Unfortunately for the Golden Knights, the Hurricanes would respond with two of their own on the man advantage, both by Andrei Svechnikov, thereby highlighting a Vegas penalty kill that needs to be better.

"One of the areas we've lost a bit is special teams," Tortorella said, adding that, "it's something we need to look at."

"As I said, we're always trying to be better defensively, we're always trying to be better in all different areas. So we've got a couple of days here, we'll try to work on that, look at some things and try to be better."

One move you won't see is a change in goal from Hart to Adin Hill. When asked during his post-game press conference if he'd consider such a change for Game 6, a visibly irked Tortorella replied that "That could be the stupidest question I've heard."

For the record, Hart is 2-3 with a 3.70 goals-against average and an .856 save percentage in the Final.

Whatever Tortorella does or does not decide what to do, he continues to show faith in his team's ability to bounce back from adversity, pointing to the experience and pedigree of those players who were on the 2023 Golden Knights squad that won the Stanley Cup. It's been a recurring theme throughout the Final, one that he again doubled down on on Friday.

"They've been through it all," he said. "They know what's at stake here. We need to win one game here.

"They'll be ready to play."

They had better be.

Because their margin of error has been whittled down to zero.