Now begins a long offseason of what could have been for the Vegas Golden Knights.
One minute, the Knights were two wins away from a second Stanley Cup in four years. The next, the Carolina Hurricanes are throwing confetti at each other on the ice of T-Mobile Arena.
The Knights’ unthinkable playoff run came to an end Sunday in a 3-0 loss in Game 6, giving the Hurricanes their second title in franchise history.
“It’s just tough, kind of finishing like that,” defenseman Shea Theodore said. “We had to be better.”
Here are five reasons why the Knights didn’t win the Stanley Cup:
The Bus stops here
The momentum changed the moment 27-year-old undrafted goalie Brandon Bussi entered the series.
There’s an argument it shifted in the third period of Game 3 with the Knights up 4-0. Frederik Andersen was pulled after allowing his 12th goal through eight periods.
It seemed like Bussi came in to give Andersen a reprieve. Not fully supplant him and take the reins.
That three-goal spurt in 39 seconds that cut the four-goal lead to one changed everything. It gave Bussi confidence. It gave Carolina reason to believe.
For the only goal Bussi allowed being the bounce off the end boards from Theodore in double overtime was enough for Carolina to ride the bus, so to speak, going forward.
Bussi made saves in Game 4 when it was tied 3-3 in the third period. He made saves in Game 5 after the Knights took a 1-0 lead and allowed Carolina to eventually take over.
He followed that with stopping all 22 shots in Game 6 for the ninth Cup-clinching shutout in the last 50 years.
“He played well,” defenseman Brayden McNabb said. “You got to tip your cap. He came in, played well. We had looks, we had chances.”
Bussi was Carolina’s improbable story during the regular season, winning 31 of 39 starts in his first year in the NHL.
Realistically, he was Carolina’s best goalie all year long. At the end, that’s who got them there and that’s who finished the job.
Staying with Hart
Carolina got a boost with its goalie change. Could the Knights have gotten the same?
Coach John Tortorella doubling down on his trust in Carter Hart might have been the turning point.
There’s no denying Hart was an important reason why the Knights made the Stanley Cup Final. Numerous times he bounced back after losses and played his best. He saved his best for crucial swing games and series clinchers.
A .924 save percentage through three rounds, and holding the Colorado Avalanche to seven goals in a four-game sweep, is not by accident.
The expectation was that it would happen against Carolina. It never did.
Hart was on the hook for four goals allowed in each of the first five games. Many of the goals were not his fault. The problems stemmed from losing net-front battles and poor defensive coverage.
“I know there’s a better game in him,” Tortorella said Saturday. “I’ve seen it throughout the playoffs. I think he’s a very good goalie. We’ve got to do a better job around him.”
That sounds a lot like what Adin Hill went through when he had the crease during the regular season — a lot of the same stuff that vilified him in the eyes of most Knights fans who were begging for a goalie change at the trade deadline.
Hill wasn’t perfect. The injury issues that plagued him earlier in his Knights tenure crept up again this year and he never got back into form.
But when the Knights were in need of a spark, they could have gone to the man that backstopped them to the Stanley Cup in 2023.
Could Hill have gotten the Knights across the finish line? Who knows? Tortorella stuck to his guns and stayed with the goalie he knew from his days in Philadelphia. It’s not why they lost, but it was never a thought to see if a shift in momentum could’ve been had.
No answer for Staal
Carolina captain Jordan Staal didn’t have the flashiest numbers to be the Conn Smythe Trophy winner for playoff MVP. He had 12 points in 19 playoff games.
Seven points came in the Stanley Cup Final, including six goals during a five-game goal streak.
The Knights didn’t have an answer for the 37-year-old center, now the oldest Conn Smythe winner in NHL history. He dominated near the blue paint offensively and scored timely goals.
Defensively, he was even better.
His line, with wingers Nik Ehlers and Seth Jarvis, neutralized Jack Eichel the entire series. The Knights were outshot 50-31 and outscored 2-1 when Eichel was on the ice against Staal, according to Natural Stat Trick.
Staal was a key factor in why Eichel never got going. One goal from Eichel could’ve changed everything. But outside of his two assists in Game 5, his best outing, Eichel never got going at 5-on-5.
Staal has been one of the best defensive centers this generation. He’s a two-time Selke Trophy finalist, and was as recently as 2024. He won 68 percent of his faceoffs in the Cup Final, the highest on record since faceoffs became a noted stat in 1998.
Tortorella touted Eichel as the best 200-foot player in the game, and Eichel is well on his way to becoming that.
Tough lessons need to be learned along the way on how to win on the other side of the ice. Going against Staal should be one of those lessons.
Special teams letdown
The timing couldn’t have been any worse for the Knights’ penalty kill to take a nosedive.
They entered the Cup Final killing 87.5 percent of penalties through 16 games. The only team to have a better mark through that many games? Carolina (92.5 percent).
If the Knights were going to struggle on the power play against a stout penalty kill, they shouldn’t have had an issue against a Carolina power play that was converting at 12.5 percent through three rounds.
The Hurricanes went 6-for-19 on the power play in the series.
“We lost our special teams a little bit a couple games ago,” Tortorella said.
The Knights’ power play needed that same production. It finished 2-for-18. They could’ve used a goal Sunday. They had their chances.
Pavel Dorofeyev was robbed near the end of the first period on a diving save by Bussi on the power play.
The Knights had a makeshift 5-on-3 in the third period after a Carolina player broke his stick, but they couldn’t get a shot off. On that same power play, Eichel hit the crossbar on a 2-on-0 when Bussi didn’t have his stick.
Carolina took advantage of its chances. The Knights didn’t.
Oh no Jack Eichel… pic.twitter.com/kJhbZEAJII
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) June 15, 2026
What could have been?
This series showed how thin the margins for error were. Razor-thin, in fact.
What if the Knights don’t blow that 3-0 lead in the third period of Game 2?
What if Shea Theodore doesn’t turn the puck over to set up Staal’s miraculous diving goal in Game 4?
What if William Karlsson doesn’t get hurt and things don’t unravel the way they do in Game 5?
What if they score a power-play goal in Game 6? Or any goal, for that matter?
The Knights were 10 minutes away from stealing both games in Carolina. At worst, there’s a Game 7 in Raleigh on Wednesday, or the Knights are the ones partying at Omnia Nightclub on Sunday night and not the Hurricanes.
There’s a reason why the playoffs are a best-of-seven. The Knights were two wins away. They found out in short answer why Carolina was a wagon all season long.
“It was a tight series,” captain Mark Stone said. “Bounce here, bounce there, could have changed it. But I’m proud of every single guy that stepped foot in this locker this season. “
Contact Danny Webster at dwebster@reviewjournal.com. Follow @DannyWebster21 on X.
