RALEIGH – Carolina goalie, Brandon Bussi, made 22 saves on Thursday night to help the Hurricanes hold off the Vegas Golden Knights for a 4-2 win in Game, and take a 3-2 series lead in the Stanley Cup Final.
“Doing it at his age just says a lot about him,” Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “He’s our guy and he’s our warrior, and I’m really happy for him.”
‘Bus Man’ has been great,” Hurricanes captain Jordan Staal said. “It’s not an easy job stepping in and doing what he did, and he’s going to have to keep doing that if you want a chance. He’s a big goalie that battles hard and grinds and finds ways to get wins, so we’re happy with any goalie that’s in our organization that’s in the net.”
Carolina fell behind early, but rallied back with four straight goals to take the game.
Sraal scored in his fifth straight game to get the rally going in the opening frame.
In the middle frame, the Canes’ Andrei Svechnikov hit for the first of a double on the power play.
His two goals book-ended a strike by Sebastian Aho in the second for a 3-1 lead headed to the third period.
“Getting on the scoresheet, he knows he needs to do that,” Brind’Amour said. “He’s playing all the power play, he’s getting all that time to cash in. It doesn’t mean you’re not playing well. All playoffs he’s, I think, played really well. But, man, if we can get that out of him, you know, that’s just a big bonus for our team.”
“For the most part we played pretty good,” Golden Knights defenseman Brayden McNabb said. “It’s just they got momentum off the penalties.”
Svechnikov hit for his double in the third period to provide the Hurricanes with a more comfortable 4-1 lead.
“This is the biggest win in my life, personally,” Svechnikov said. “Thank God we won that game and obviously all focus right now in our mind is we’ve got one more win to (get) here.”
Vegas’ two goals came off the stick of Pavel Dorofeyev who opened the scoring in the fist for a 1-0 lead, and then picked up his second late in the third period to close the deficit to 4-2.
“I mean, I think anytime you give the other team’s best players an opportunity to get on the ice on the power play and feel good about themselves — and I think, obviously, you’re a man down, right? So, you stack that up — it can definitely get challenging and tire guys out, but we’ve still got to do a job there,” Golden Knights forward Nic Dowd said. “The game is still 1-1, even 2-1 it’s still quite within reach. So, like I said, I was happy about a lot of things. We played well for the majority of the game.”
That was as close as the Golden Knights would get.
“I thought we were still doing some good things, still getting chances, obviously,” Vegas’ Jack Eichel said. “They scored, so yeah, I mean, they were able to get some momentum off of it, and you know, special teams is a big part of the game, and this time of year you got to be on the right side of it. Unfortunately, we weren’t.”
Game 6 is set for Las Vegas on Sunday.
“We’re ready for it,” Ehlers said. “This team has been working all year for moments like these, and especially this moment.”