Drop the Puck: One for the Ages?

Stanley Cup Finals: Game 3 Recap

by Zach

I'm getting 2025 World Series vibes from this Stanley Cup Final.

Vegas is the team that seems to be good every year, and it's annoying, because you wish they didn't exist, and they are a team that needs to be hated. They are the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Carolina Hurricanes have won a Cup, but it was a long time ago, and their fans are desperate for some success. It's been a long time, and they've been disappointed by the team that plays the sport most associated with the city (the Charlotte Hornets have never won a championship). They are the Toronto Blue Jays, who play in a hockey city where the team is perpetually disappointing.

Game 3, too, felt like Game 3 of the World Series. Tied 1-1, the World Series game went 18 innings, only to finish in an instant, with a Freddie Freeman walk-off homerun for the Dodgers. This game went to double overtime, only to finish in an instant, on a fluky goal that was absolutely heartbreaking for the Canes. 

We don't know if this series will end the same way as the World Series did. But if this one doesn't go seven games, I will feel robbed. It has the makings of an all-time classic.

Consider the facts of this game:

• The Golden Knights scored two goals in the second period, and both of them were waved off—the first for offsides, the second for goaltender interference. In the end, they still scored the first of the game to take a 1-0 lead on goalie Frederik Andersen, who wasn't good in this game. He was pulled before the third period.
• Mitch Marner is making Maple Leafs fans miserable. He scored a natural hat trick, with three straight second period goals to put Vegas up 4-0. The last one was on a breakaway slapshot that was an absolute eff you to everyone associated with the Canes organization.
• The game seemed over at that point. Brandon Bussi came in as the Canes goalie, and there were no goals in the first seven minutes of the third. Marner got a penalty shot after he was slashed on a shorthanded breakaway, but couldn't score his fourth goal, and that's what gave the Canes life. In a flurry, the Canes scored three goals in the span of one minute. It was 4-3, and we were set up for a wild finish.
• The Canes got a power play toward the end of the game after defenseman Shea Theodore sent a puck over the glass for delay of game. They capitalized quickly, pulling their goaltender and creating a scrum in front of the net. Andrei Svechnikov, who Alex Ovechkin knocked out in a fight during the Caps-Canes 2019 first round series, put the puck in to tie the game with less than two minutes to go. Insane!
• There were no goals in the first overtime, although there were chances. Then, in the second overtime, Theodore, the delay of game goat from the third period, shot a puck wide of the net. It bounced off the boards and knocked off Canes winger Jordan Martinook's stick as it shot back directly towards Bussi, who wildly flailed his left skate to get it out of the way but wasn't successful. The puck caromed off his skate and into the net for the Canes second own goal of the game (another was knocked in inadvertently by Canes defenseman Sean Walker, as well, although Marner was credited with the goal). Theodore was the hero, although not because of his skill—he just got a bounce that the hockey gods decided to send Vegas's way.

If the Canes had managed to fully come back in this game, I would say the series was theirs. Instead, they're behind. But if the World Series is any indication, the Canes will win Games 4 and 5 before losing heartbreakers in Game 6 and 7. Game 7 will be a classic, remembered for ages. And PoYB's readers will be devastated.

Let's hope this one is different.

Game 4 is tomorrow night in Vegas.