Tomas Hertl scored from the slot with 3:24 left in the third period, lifting the Vegas Golden Knights past the Carolina Hurricanes 5-4 in the Stanley Cup Final opener.
Hertl's finish off Colton Sisson's feed from the right face-off circle broke a 4-4 tie and pushed the Golden Knights ahead in an entertaining back-and-forth start on the sport's biggest stage on Tuesday night (Wednesday AEST) in Raleigh, North Carolina.
It marked a seventh straight Vegas win of the playoffs, including the four-game sweep of the Presidents' Trophy-winning Colorado Avalanche.
That series included Vegas erasing a 3-0 deficit to take Game 3, and now the Golden Knights have followed by rallying from another multi-goal deficit - this time 2-0 in the opening period - against the team that finished second to the Avalanche in the regular season.
HOLY MOLY HERTL 😮💨 #StanleyCup
— NHL (@NHL) June 3, 2026
🇺🇸: ABC
🇨🇦: @Sportsnet & @TVASports pic.twitter.com/JiMNgozSAy
"It was awesome. It was tough," Hertl said in a post-game interview on the ABC broadcast.
"I know this building was buzzing. We obviously didn't have the greatest start, but that's kind of our story all season. We never give up. It doesn't matter if we're up, down, we just keep playing."
Game 2 of the best-of-seven series is on Thursday (Friday AEST) in Raleigh, with Vegas already having taken home-ice away from the Hurricanes as they chase a second Cup title in four seasons.
Shea Theodore, Ivan Barbashev, William Karlsson and Brett Howden also scored for Vegas, with Howden's post-season-leading 11th score giving the Golden Knights a 4-3 lead just 1:21 into the third period. Carter Hart finished with 23 saves.
Nikolaj Ehlers scored twice for the Hurricanes, the first coming 25 seconds into the game when he got loose and blasted one past Hart from the left side on the game's first shot.
He followed with a breakaway that gave Carolina a 2-0 lead and sent a charged home crowd into an eruption in the team's first Stanley Cup Final game in two decades.
Jordan Staal and Shayne Gostisbehere each scored tying goals after Vegas had pushed to a lead, with Gostisbehere skating in clean on the left side to blast one past Hart at 11:19 of the third period and tie it once more at 4-4.
The Hurricanes went 12-1 through three rounds to get back to the Stanley Cup Final for the first time since coach Rod Brind'Amour captained them to the title in 2006.
Carolina swept through Ottawa and Philadelphia before taking the last four games of a five-game win against Montreal to punch through an Eastern Conference Final roadblock.
That made the Hurricanes the first team since 1983 to reach the Stanley Cup Final with one loss, and the first since the NHL went to best-of-seven series in all four rounds in 1987.
