Coming into an elimination Game 6, head coach John Tortorella made a shocking change – scratching veteran forward Keegan Kolesar for Braeden Bowman, who had not played in an NHL game in 85 days. Reilly Smith slotted in for the injured William Karlsson and Kaeden Korczak replaced Dylan Coghlan on the blueline. Despite multiple changes that could have sparked better offense into the team, the Golden Knights posted a dud against the Hurricanes in a do-or-die Stanley Cup Final game.
60 minutes later, the Vegas Golden Knights lost the 2026 Stanley Cup Final after being shutout 3-0 in Game 6 by the Carolina Hurricanes. Vegas’ star-studded forward lines consisting of Jack Eichel, Mitch Marner, Mark Stone, Brett Howden among others failed to show up when it mattered most, and could not breach Carolina’s defence through three periods.
Golden Knights head coach John Tortorella gave his two cents on the biggest differentiating factor between the two teams, that eventually led to the Carolina Hurricanes being crowned the Stanley Cup champions.
“Their goaltender was really good tonight. Since he came in he’s been really good. We lost our special teams a little bit, it kinda came back tonight. I’m not going to take anything away from Carolina, but we put some good minutes in too. It’s a find a way league and they found a way and we didn’t,” Tortorella said after the loss.
The Carolina Hurricanes made a change in net after two periods into Game 3, when Brandon Bussi took over from Frederik Andersen. Despite a loss in that game due to an unfortunate bounce, Bussi stood tall in net for the Hurricanes in games 4 through 6 posting a .931 save percentage and 1.60 goals against average across four games.
On the flip side, John Tortorella did not make any change in net, trusting in Carter Hart all the way through six games, without even given Stanley Cup champ Adin Hill a chance in net.
Edited by Srihari Anand