The Vegas Golden Knights know that the bookmakers in their own city have them as the underdogs in the Stanley Cup Final.
All that matters to the Golden Knights is what happens on the ice during the best-of-seven finals that begin Tuesday when they face the Carolina Hurricanes in Raleigh, N.C.
“I honestly don’t really think I care or it matters to us,” Vegas defenseman Shea Theodore said on Monday. “We have belief in our room from the first game of playoffs up until now. Whatever is said is said. At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter who picks who. The better team ends up winning.”
The Golden Knights, who are riding a six-game winning streak, and the Hurricanes, who are looking to become the first NHL team to go 16-1 in the postseason, are both chasing a second Cup title in franchise history.
Carolina — the former Hartford Whalers franchise which became the Hurricanes for the 1997-98 season — for the won its only Cup in 2006 and had not reached the finals since. Vegas, which won in 2023, is in the finals for the third time in its nine-year history.
Thirteen players on this season’s Vegas roster played on that 2022-23 team.
“You can draw from your experience, knowing what to expect, having done it before and knowing what this is gonna look like,” said forward Jack Eichel, a member of that Cup-winning team. “But I think every series and every season has its own story, so we’re trying to write that now.”
Although Carolina’s run is garnering more headlines, the Golden Knights have been just as hot since the final few weeks of the regular season. After John Tortorella was hired in a late-season coaching change, Vegas posted a 7-0-1 mark down the stretch to claim the top spot in the Pacific Division and has marched through its opponents with a 19-4-1 record since he took over.
“He’s a big personality guy,” defenseman Brayden McNabb said. “So it’s very easy to get comfortable right away. He tells you exactly what he wants from you and it’s all black and white.
“He came in and preached the right things and got us playing better and better as a team.”
That said, the Hurricanes are worthy of their favorite status. Carolina reached this point by sweeping its opponents in the first two rounds — the Ottawa Senators and Philadelphia Flyers — and then knocking out the Montreal Canadiens in five games in the conference finals, which it concluded with a pair of dominant victories.
The Hurricanes are the first team since the 1976 Montreal Canadiens to win 12 of 13 games to open a playoff run. That Montreal team claimed the Stanley Cup, and the Hurricanes are looking to duplicate the feat.
“We went through so much … now we’re here,” forward Andrei Svechnikov said. “But still the job is not done. This is the biggest stage, we all know that, but now we have one more step.”
Reaching this point was a huge achievement for a Carolina club that reached the Eastern Conference finals for the third time in four years and fourth time in eight seasons, but was becoming known for falling short.
A key to the Hurricanes continuing their success, beyond the club’s stifling defensive play, will be to embrace the situation. After all, hockey history is loaded with clubs that managed to reach a new point but then failed to reload.
“We’ve been knocking on the door for this for a while. To be in this moment now, I think everyone is extremely grateful and super excited,” forward Seth Jarvis said.
“We’re competing for the Stanley Cup with 20 of my best friends. Twenty guys I’ve spent a lot of time with. To be here in this moment with this group of guys, I can’t ask for anything more.”
