8:15
With the back and forth nature of this Stanley Cup Final, it was fair to wonder who would capture momentum in Game 5. An easy answer in the form of Andrei Svechnikov's second power play goal of the night. Carolina in front 4 to 1 at that point would hang on to a 4 to 2 victory to claim back-to-back games, now one win away from Lord Stanley's Cup. Carolina heading back to Vegas on the precipice. And for reaction, we turn to two of our best CBS Sports NHL analysts Todd Fuhrman and Pierre McGuire. And fellas, this was an interesting match-up back and forth throughout the series, but no doubt who had the jump tonight. Pierre, you said it would be Carolina. It was in fact Carolina. What stands out in the
way that they put together this comprehensive effort? Well, they were much more reliable defensively, Joe, number one. Number two, I think the biggest thing is they needed Aho and Svechnikov to get going, and they got them going in game number five. Svechnikov with two power play goals, Aho with a spectacular play from his skate to his stick to the back of the net. Um, and one of the big keys to that was the puck was rolling, and he found a way to engage his skill and make the play. So, they get two big performances from two guys they needed to really step up. And then obviously, Jordan Staal was
huge in this game. He gets the first goal when they're behind one nothing, and he finds a way to stimulate the team with his physical play, his forechecking ability, and obviously his face-off play. But here's a slick goal by Aho. Spectacular from the skate to the stick to the rolling puck to the back of the net. Can't say enough good things about Carolina. It's not that Vegas was terrible. They just were not as good as Carolina tonight. To your point, Pierre, Carolina got the production that they needed from their best players, and this penalty kill for Vegas, which had been their strength for the first couple of rounds, now has suddenly become their Achilles' heel. And Vegas has nobody to blame for some
of these penalties they took tonight other than themselves. A lot of them on non-hockey plays. If we go back to Jeremy Lauzon taking the penalty against Logan Stankoven after the whistle. Brady McNabb got away with a cross-check early in the game. You knew the officials were going to look to try and get number three if he went back to the same place. Sure enough, that's the case. Mark Stone is better than that. Getting the stick up and clipping Jalen Chatfield leading to the double minor. It's the little things that Vegas isn't doing in this series right now that they're paying for in a variety of ways. And while Pierre Roy led off a number of Carolina Hurricanes who played exceptionally
well, I think we have to tip our hat to what Brandon Bussi has done to stabilize the goaltending position. He's come up big time and time again. They rattled off some of those numbers at what we've seen from Bussi especially in the third period. I know he gives up a goal to make it a 4-2 game late, but he comes up with a massive save on Tomas Hertl on a puck that's bouncing around that would have given Vegas an opportunity to only be down a goal with a little less than 90 seconds to go in the game. So, credit to Rod Brind'Amour. Going back to Brandon Bussi, he rewarded them in spades and everybody else wearing a Carolina sweater tonight elevated their game just a bit despite finally seeing some production from some of Vegas'
higher profile players with Jack Eichel getting a pair of assists and Pavel Dorofeyev breaking a long goal scoring drought as well. Six power play goals in the last four games for Carolina. You got big names delivering. Your power play's humming. You found a hot-handed goalie. You're managing momentum. But Pierre, I want to go back to something that you mentioned. The moment where the captain, the man with the C on his sweater, delivers early in this game. There's There's showing up for your team as a captain and then there's whatever the heck that you call Staal's performance to this
point. Pots another goal, six on the series, five consecutive games. point in this match-up specifically. To take on not just that onus as a leader, but to lead through your play the way that Jordan Staal is right now says what about the spearhead of this attack right now for Carolina? You know what's really cool about this is that Carolina is a straight analytics team. Jordan Staal's play is all about the eye test. It's about winning races, about winning face-offs, about being strong with board play, about being ugly in front of the opposition net. It's about having great hand-eye coordination. That goal that he scores to tie the game in the first period, he wins a battle on the boards, the puck
eventually goes to Nikky Ehlers, and you see him win the foot race against Brayden McNabb to get to the front of net and chip it by Carter Hart. These are all the little things. Right there. That is not an analytic play. That is an eye test play. And that's a beautiful play by Jordan Staal. It's spectacular. But this is a kind of stuff you have to have, and everybody in Raleigh knows it. And to your point, Pierre, it's the little things that Jordan Staal does away from the play that's given him the opportunities to cash in that blue area. I mean, you saw the follow-through to finish his check on Brayden McNabb.
He wins the foot race to the front of the net and perfectly angles his stick to get the puck by Carter Hart, who sat a little bit deeper in his net than what I would have liked to see in that particular spot. And as a result, Jordan Staal has moved to the odds-on favorite to win the Conn Smythe Trophy at minus a dollar five with our friends at FanDuel. If you'd have tried to paint this storyline for me coming into the Stanley Cup Final, telling me that Jordan Staal was going to be the guy that can elevate his play for Carolina, not with his defensive capabilities and the little things he did, winning face-offs in those high-leverage opportunities, but contributing on the offensive end, I
would have been hard-pressed to make a same compelling case for that being exactly what we've seen transpire. But lo and behold, everybody is chipping in for the Canes. Jordan Staal is leading by example. And to Pierre's point, they started to get contributions from the players that we normally would expect to score those big-time goals, an Andrei Svechnikov up front and Sebastian Aho with a little bit of slick stick handling, to use Pierre's words, before he found the back of the net against Carter Hart. The streak of five is alive as we head to what could be a decisive game in Las Vegas. As for Staal, it's now six on the series, tied with Brad Marchand for the most in a Stanley Cup
Final by a player 37 years old or older. It's timeless, the performance, and it's net-front stuff, as we saw in game four and again here in game five. I'm going to go to our netminder here because you touched on it a little bit, Todd, but what Brandon Bussi's doing right now is really capturing a moment and an opportunity, and one on the biggest stage you could imagine in the sport right now. For him to continue to play as decisive and free as he appeared tonight after giving up that early one, what does it say about the headspace he's occupying right now? So much of the time, Joe, in sports, not just the NHL, but across the sporting landscape, we say you have to accumulate
a little bit of that scar tissue before you can perform on the biggest stage. But there are also illustrations like we're seeing from Brandon Bussi, where I'll say it, ignorance is bliss. He gets thrown into the deep end of the pool, as we alluded to earlier in the pregame show, down four nothing against Vegas, a chance to get his feet wet in his first playoff action, let alone a Stanley Cup Final. What does he do? He stops a penalty shot, he comes up with some timely saves and gives Carolina an opportunity to win that hockey game before they came up a bit short. But he doesn't wilt after the bad goal he gives up in double overtime to Shea Theodore.
He bounces back with a strong performance, and in this kind of spot, playing in front of his home fans, Brandon Bussi backed it up yet again. Gave up the early goal that he had no chance with a great passing play from Jack Eichel to Pavel Dorofeyev on that Golden Knights power play, but Bussi comes up with some of the timely stops, and that's what you want to see from a goalie. Right now, he's out playing Carter Hart, and while I don't find a ton of fault in Hart's game tonight, on the other end, somewhere along the way you have to come up with the big save.
We can go back to the Jordan Staal goal where I said I think he sat a little too deep in his crease, needs to come out and take away time and space. The puck that goes between the wickets for him, that also is a double screen in front of you know, Jeremy Lauzon. At the same time, Hart hasn't made the big plays to give the Golden Knights the momentum they need, Bussi has, and that's why Carolina finds themselves with an opportunity to close this out in Vegas on Sunday night. You know, Todd and Jody, you're talking about some really good things, but here's the biggest thing that I take away from this.
Playoffs are a battle of attrition, and we've already seen Freddy Andersen not play in games four and five, um, and didn't finish game three. You see what Brandon Bussi's doing in terms of being a guy that's wanted PPW to prove people wrong. He's doing all that. I go back in this game, and this is going to be a hit. We talk about battle of attrition in the playoffs. The Sean Walker hit on William Karlsson in the second period. Karlsson doesn't finish the game. He definitely has left the rink early. He's gone to the hospital, much like Brayden McNabb did, uh, after in one of the early games in the series. If they don't have William Karlsson for game number six, this is a major problem
for Vegas. You could see John Tortorella's reaction on the bench. It was scary because I've been in those shoes before. I've had players that have been injured in a Stanley Cup Final, and you usually are kind of like melancholy. You don't say very much. You don't act very demonstratively. You don't want to tip your hand to the opposition. John's actions kind of said it all, and that's not a knock on Johnny. That's just a fact that he knows how much William Karlsson matters to this team. If he can't play in game six, advantage Carolina, significantly. Uh, Tortorella's has breathed the belief into this outfit that seemed to be lacking it throughout the throws of this season, but they're in that dressing
room right now saying, "Hey, get a good look at the room, fellas. We're going to be back here on Wednesday for seven. Something has to change between now and then to capture game six and force a seventh game, Pierre." In your eyes, you said this wasn't a bad game by Las Vegas, but it's just the little things that are coming up and accumulating into a bigger problem right now. What is the coaching point? What is the adjustment between now and six? Well, you know, Todd nailed it perfectly, I think, Joe. And the truth of the matter is can't take silly penalties. These guys played out of character. Marchessault is a brilliant player. He's not a little bit smart.
He's really smart. That's a high stick. He knows his stick should be on the ice there. That's a bad play against Jaylen Chatfield. You can't have guys running around taking themselves out of play. That Brayden McNabb penalty uh in the first period Mhm. That's a But that's a bad penalty. That's a bad Or sorry, in the second period. That's a bad penalty. So, you look at it. Svechnikov gets two power play goals. Um you know, you see how comfortable Carolina is. The coaching message is pretty simple from John. We got to play our game whistle to whistle. We can't take any penalties. We've got to get 25 or more shots on goal. They still haven't really been there. They less than 25 again tonight. The
truth of the matter is if they're not playing on all cylinders and they're not paying attention to little details, they're not winning game six. I'm telling you right now. This time of year, guys, you know it as well as I do. The margins for error are extremely small. And through five games of the series, I haven't seen Vegas put together a complete 60 minutes. There have been flashes of brilliance. There have been ebbs and flows, but for whatever reason, they seem to lose their focus at key junctures. And it's been so uncharacteristic of this team who has dealt with adversity when you look at how the regular season went before they
were able to right the ship under John Tortorella and ultimately win the Pacific Division. Losing back-to-back games against the Utah Mammoth before they rallied back winning three straight, facing a little bit of trouble against the Anaheim Ducks, and then boat racing, at least on the scoreboard the Colorado Avalanche in a series that was significantly closer than what that 4-0 series sweep suggests. This Carolina team hasn't been to the Stanley Cup Final, but they know how close they've been and they've run into the big bad wolf that has been the Florida Panthers. They've now broken down that door and sit on the cusp of winning a Stanley Cup that they've been chasing for
20-some-odd years as a franchise. If Vegas is going to try and send the series back to Raleigh for a pivotal game seven, they have to pay attention to detail. They need to be better man-for-man, and like Pierre said, they probably are going to have to do it without William Karlsson centering that second line, which creates a gaping hole given the level of creativity he provides on the offensive side and what he's able to do as a Swiss Army knife and a chess piece defensively as one of his most underrated characteristics. They'll have to figure it out because Vegas' margin for error is all gone.
