LAS VEGAS — Standing between the benches, with a perfect view of the carnage that had just unfolded, ESPN analyst Ray Ferraro summed up the scene brilliantly.
“It looks like a Vegas team picture in the corner,” he said as the only other sound in T-Mobile Arena involved the hollers from Carolina’s jubilant bench.
In a desperate attempt to recover from a ghastly Shea Theodore gift to Seth Jarvis in the slot, four Vegas Golden Knights scurried to the corner to try recovering a puck Carter Hart had valiantly returned aside.
Seconds after the puck squirted loose, there lay Jordan Staal on his belly after chopping in an off-balance backhanded backbreaker for the winner that instantly became a double-fisted meme in the Carolinas.
A goal for the ages, which John Tortorella insisted was the result of an uncharacteristic breakdown by his club.
“Frustrating part for me is they don't earn their winning goal,” lamented Tortorella when asked what he felt was the difference in a 5-3 loss to land the Stanley Cup Final exactly where it should be: tied.
“It's not so much the turnover — and Carter makes a great save — but just after that, we make another mistake, and leave the front of the net. It was a bit of a panic, everybody chased into the corner. We’ve got to do a better job in the blue.”
Adding later of the Carolina Hurricanes captain, who has scored in every game of the series, “He’s killing us in front of the net, Staal.”
“He's a big man, he's a good player — that's where he lives. That's a hard one for me in the third period.”
Staal’s second of the night broke a 3-3 tie just six minutes into the third, giving the Golden Knights plenty of time to author the same sort of magic seen from both clubs throughout this thrillingly chaotic series.
Alas, Brandon Bussi and the Hurricanes held the fort.
Finally, some defence for a team known for it throughout the regular season.
For those keeping score, that’s a 9-3 deficit in the third period the Golden Knights are operating under in this series — a kick in the teeth given the hosts had battled back from a 3-1 first period deficit to set up a winner-take all third.
The third-period problems are a bit of a head scratcher for a Vegas team previously known for its third-period surges.
“We know we can score goals, I think just at the end of the day we have to defend better,” said Theodore.
“We battled back, but I think too many turnovers, myself included. I think we just have to be better going forward.”
With Nikolaj Ehlers’ empty-netter, the Hurricanes now hold a 17-16 scoring edge in a wide-open series, restoring home-ice advantage in what is now a best-of-three starting Thursday in Raleigh.
The Hurricanes led 2-0 just three minutes into the game before Mark Stone got the crowd back into it four minutes later.
After Staal scored his first of the night, the Golden Knights thought they scored a buzzer-beater to end the first, only to have it waved off as it crossed the line a split second late.
William Karlsson and Brett Howden continued the team’s second-period dominance (they are out-scoring the Hurricanes 9-1 in the middle frame), with a pair of goals that made it a Stanley Cup Final-record four straight games in which a two-goal deficit was erased.
They set up a third in which the Golden Knights felt they let the game slip away.
“Tied at home going into the third, for sure you feel like that slipped away, especially when you come back from 3-1 to 3-3,” said Rasmus Andersson.
“I feel like the whole series has been a momentum series, where if you get one, you get two. Or if you're down two, you come back and all of a sudden get three. So it's been kind of the same old series. When they get one, we’ve just got to find a way to stop the bleeding.”
At some point it feels like one or both of these teams are going to start playing the sort of defence that got them to the Final.
But once again, an inordinate amount of pressure continued to be lumped on Hart and Frederik Andersen’s replacement, Bussi.
Less than a year after being plucked off waivers from Florida, there was the Hurricanes' revelation making his NHL playoff debut with a gutsy, 18-save performance to knot this series for the ages.
“I thought our third period was probably our best period,” said Tortorella.
“Jack (Eichel) hits the crossbar, we hit a post, but we didn’t get it done.”
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