Analysis: Golden Knights make too many mistakes in winnable Stanley Cup Game 2

Tomas Hertl emerged as the driving force of the Golden Knights’ Game 1 Stanley Cup Final victory over the Carolina Hurricanes earlier this week.

He paved the way to their demise in Game 2 Thursday night at the Lenovo Center in Raleigh, N.C.

The veteran forward picked up a tripping penalty three minutes into overtime on Carolina captain Jordan Staal. Less than a minute later, Hurricanes’ regular-season leading scorer Seth Jarvis slapped in a one-timer goal from defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere to give the home team a 4-3 victory.  

Carolina tied the best-of-seven series at one victory apiece heading into Game 3 at 5 p.m. Saturday at T-Mobile Arena.

Hertl wasn’t the only Golden Knight who erred down the stretch in Game 2. Vegas had played so solid and mistake-free during a seven-game winning streak dating back to the second-round, but its sharpness unraveled with a chance to take a commanding 2-0 lead in the Final. 

The Golden Knights should be left feeling like they let one get away against the Hurricanes on Thursday considering they only trailed for about three minutes of game time and led 2-0 with 10 minutes to play.

Brett Howden scored goals in each of the first two periods with sensational individual efforts that saw him blow past defenders and beat Hurricanes goalie Frederik Andersen. Mitch Marner put the one in the first period into motion with a pass before Ivan Barbashev had the primary-assisting honors in the second. Howden now has 13 goals in the postseason, three more than anyone else in the NHL.

He may now be the Golden Knights’ leading contender for the Conn Smythe Trophy given to the Stanley Cup playoffs’ most valuable player, but it’s going to be tougher to capture after what followed his scores in Game 2.

The Golden Knights maintained their two-goal lead for nearly 23 minutes after Howden’s second goal with the suffocating defense fans have begun to expect, but their grasp slipped with just less than 10 minutes to play.

That’s when defenseman Rasmus Andersson misplayed a puck behind Vegas’ net and turned it over, leading to a wraparound goal from Carolina leading playoff goal-scorer Logan Stankoven.

Andersson was also on the ice for the Hurricanes’ equalizer two-and-a-half minutes later when former Golden Knight William Carrier set up linemate Mark Jankowski with a look from the slot that he put over goalie Carter Hart’s glove.

Hart’s hot streak may have officially ended with his second straight mediocre game, allowing four goals on 26 shots.

But it’s hard to blame the Hurricanes’ final two goals on him considering they came on the power play.

The game became truly wild after Jankowski scored.

Vegas coach John Tortorella has pushed all the right buttons since taking over 26 games ago — with 20 victories — but finally committed a blunder at an inopportune time.

Barbashev appeared to score on a third effort with five minutes to play in regulation but the officials had already ruled the play dead for inadvertent goaltender interference. Tortorella challenged even though that meant the Golden Knights would receive a delay-of-game penalty if there wasn’t indisputable evidence to overturn.

It didn’t take long for the officials to announce that the call stood as no goal. Vegas went down a man, and Staal deflected in a slapshot from Gostisbehere to put Carolina up 3-2.

But the Golden Knights didn’t quit and forced an extra period when Mitch Marner got a shot on net that Andersen initially stopped but bounced off several skaters including Vegas captain Mark Stone for a goal.

Overtime hardly got started before Hertl was slamming his stick as he stepped into the penalty box. Carolina’s power play had struggled mightily throughout the postseason with only a 12% success rate before Thursday night but came to life at the right time.

That was enough when combined with Vegas committing uncharacteristic missteps at the wrong time.