The Carolina Hurricanes may have walked through the Eastern Conference, but the Vegas Golden Knights are proving to be a different animal altogether in the Stanley Cup Final.
Though it has been an extremely competitive opening three games, there are signs Vegas is challenging Carolina in a unique way.
Carolina’s oppressive forecheck and up-tempo style of play has made them one of the preeminent franchises of the past decade, but such a structure requires exemplary depth at the forward and defensive positions. The Hurricanes may not have a Connor McDavid or Nathan MacKinnon at the top of their lineup, but they make up for it in an ability to oppress teams with three (and sometimes four) capable lines and three defensive pairings that play interchangeably.
The Hurricanes’ depth – a testament to the importance of the drafting and roster-building Carolina’s completed – is a bona fide competitive advantage, torturing teams that can’t effectively match up against all the five-man units Rod Brind’Amour can assemble.
The problem in this Stanley Cup Final is that the Hurricanes are playing a team just as deep, with star power all over their lineup. Vegas is up 2-1 heading into Game 4, and it’s because they are winning the minutes at even strength – something rarely, if ever said in series involving Carolina.
But look at what Vegas’ personnel allows them to do! On one line, a star in Jack Eichel gets to play with rugged finishers in Ivan Barbashev and Pavel Dorofeyev, the latter who scored 37 goals in the regular season. A line behind that group features two of the smartest veterans in the league in Mark Stone and Tomas Hertl. Another line features the wondrous playmaking of Mitch Marner, who has taken over the Stanley Cup Final and is now the prohibitive Conn Smythe favourite after a Game 3 hat trick.
There is always high-end talent on the ice, and it’s causing matchup issues for Carolina. Consider the head-to-head goal differential tables below from the first three games. You’ll see Carolina’s middle-six forwards are coming under considerable pressure right now:
Most of this table amplifies how tightly competitive this series has been, but look at the Marner line specifically through the first three games because that’s the story of this series so far.
The duo of Marner and Brett Howden specifically have been red hot. Marner has six points in the series, Howden another five, and they’re notably doing the most damage against the vaunted K’Andre Miller and Sean Walker pairing. Remember: prior to this series, the Miller pairing had outscored teams 17-3 (+14) when deployed.
I do wonder if we see Brind’Amour experimenting a bit more with his personnel as a result of this, and that doesn’t exclusively concern the skater group.
One of the biggest stories coming out of Game 3 was backup Brandon Bussi looking fantastic in relief of a suddenly struggling Frederik Andersen. Brind’Amour hasn’t announced a Game 4 starter yet, but with how good Bussi looked against Vegas, I’d be surprised if he didn’t turn to him Tuesday night.
It’s been a fascinating series so far, and now Carolina’s going to have to play for the first time under real pressure this postseason. Let’s see how they respond.
Data via Natural Stat Trick, NHL.com, Evolving Hockey, Hockey Reference
