Are you ready, dear reader? I said, ARE YOU READY?? The Stanley Cup Final starts on Tuesday, which pits the Vegas Golden Knights against the Carolina Hurricanes. You're looking at a third Stanley Cup Final appearance for the Golden Knights, who swept the Colorado Avalanche in the Western Conference Final.
As for Carolina? Well, they've steamrolled the competition to go on a 12-1 run. That included two sweeps against the Ottawa Senators and the Philadelphia Flyers. They also rattled off four straight wins against the Montreal Canadiens in the Eastern Conference Final to get to their third Stanley Cup Final appearance in franchise history.
Therefore, fans should expect a heavyweight matchup between two red-hot teams. Both teams are on a heater and obliterated their conference final opponents, en route to an unsurprising matchup.
So, let's look at who could win this series. Who has the edge and what could be the deciding factors? Once again, we're breaking out the ol' whiteboard and marking down some X's and O's.
Jacob Walters
The Carolina Hurricanes are an opportunistic team that'll hop on any bad giveaway from the opposing team. They can establish their forecheck with ease and blitz you with a quick-strike attack. The Hurricanes also have a red-hot Frederick Andersen in net, which could cause all sorts of problems for the Golden Knights.
However, that was a similar problem that the Golden Knights were supposed to face in the Western Conference Final. You can guess what happened in that round, which could happen to the Hurricanes, too. However, I feel that this will go seven games and the Golden Knights winning it all. Expect Marner to win the Conn Smythe Trophy and expect Hockey Twitter to explode.
Robert Lazar
The Canes are easily the most defensively stout team Vegas has faced during these playoffs. They have a defensive group led by the perennially-underrated Olympic gold medalist Jaccob Slavin and features K'Andre Miller and Jalen Chatfield. Captain Jordan Staal has also finished as a Selke finalist multiple times and should've won it by now.
While their forward group lacks a true superstar name in the vein of MacKinnon and Eichel, they have some dangerous scoring options in Sebastian Aho and Seth Jarvis, with veteran free-agent acquisition Nikolaj Ehlers helping out on this run, too. In addition, veteran goaltender and former Mitch Marner teammate Frederik Andersen followed up a rough regular season with an absolute heater in the playoffs. His 8-1 run is one of the most dominant playoff performances in recent memory: even the 2012 Los Angeles Kings dropped two games en route to the Stanley Cup Final.
This will be a tight series with both teams playing defense-heavy hockey, while having red-hot goalies that are locked in. Don't expect too many fireworks or high-scoring games. I will say that Carolina's bottom-six and defensive groups are better than Vegas's. The goaltending is even and Vegas's top-six is slightly better.
The bit about Carolina being the stoutest team Vegas has seen goes both ways, too. The Golden Knights are arguably the most complete team that the Hurricanes faced during these playoffs and they destroyed an Avalanche team everyone expected to roll during the Western Conference Final. Vegas has also done well in close games during this run, with only three wins decided by more than two goals. The guess here is Vegas in seven in an all-time classic.
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