RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The Carolina Hurricanes got off to a fast start in their first Stanley Cup Final game in 20 years, only to see the Vegas Golden Knights regroup to take a lead of their own.
By the end of two periods, the teams were tied at 3 in a matchup of an Eastern Conference heavyweight and a talent-laden Western Conference champion that has gotten better with every playoff round.
Captain Jordan Staal scored for Carolina from the slot, beating
Carter Hart at 12:42 of the second period to again level what has been a back-and-forth tussle that included immediate scores to start each period.
Vegas had taken a 3-2 lead when William Karlsson scored the last of three unanswered goals, with the Golden Knights awakening from a sluggish start from a six-day wait to start the series while the Hurricanes finally putting away Montreal in the Eastern Conference Final.
Nikolaj Ehlers scored twice in the opening period, the first coming just 25 seconds in when he got loose on a rush on the left side and blasted a puck past Hart on the game's first shot. He followed by taking a feed from Jalen Chatfield and skating in on a breakaway to beat Hart again at the 12:08 mark to make it 2-0.
Vegas' Shea Theodore got one back by firing the puck through traffic to beat Frederik Andersen at 13:28 of the first, then Ivan Barbashev beat Andersen from the slot 30 seconds into the second period to tie it at 2-all.
That made this the first Stanley Cup Final game in history that had a goal in the first 30 seconds of both the first and second periods.
Ehlers’ first score marked the fastest Game 1 goal in a Cup final since Philadelphia’s Reggie Leach scored 21 seconds into the 1976 opener against Montreal.
Ehlers' goal was the third-fastest in any Game 1 of a Stanley Cup Final, while the Hurricanes nearly added a second with defenseman Jaccob Slavin banging the crossbar roughly a minute after Ehlers' score sent a charged home crowd into an eruption.
Tuesday's game brought together a Vegas team chasing a second championship in four seasons and a Carolina team playing for the Cup for the first time since coach Rod Brind’Amour captained the Hurricanes to the 2006 title.
The Hurricanes rolled through the Eastern Conference playoffs, while the Golden Knights picked up speed with each round before pulling off a shocking sweep of the Presidents' Trophy-winning Colorado Avalanche.
The Hurricanes went 12-1 through three rounds to get here, sweeping through Ottawa and Philadelphia before taking the last four games of a five-game win against the Canadiens. 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.
The Golden Knights — who surged after a late-season coaching change by firing Bruce Cassidy to hire John Tortorella — pushed past Utah and Anaheim in a pair of six-game series, and have won six straight games entering Tuesday's Game 1.
Defense had been the standout feature for both teams. Carolina has allowed two or fewer goals in 12 of 13 playoff games, including a shutout win in all three Eastern playoff rounds. Vegas allowed just seven goals in the sweep of the Avalanche, who led the league in regular-season scoring (3.63 goals per game) behind high-end skill like Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar and Martin Necas.
But the teams spent the first two periods capitalizing on their chances in an entertaining back-and-forth game, first Carolina, then Vegas by hemming Carolina in its own end for a good chunk of the second period before the Hurricanes pushed back.
Vegas took both regular-season meetings with Carolina, first with a 4-1 home win on Oct. 20. Eight days later, Jack Eichel scored twice in the last 4:59 for a 6-3 win that included Carolina having multiple injuries that had them down to four defensemen for a significant stretch of the night.
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