Hurricanes beat Golden Knights to win second Stanley Cup title, Staal named playoff MVP

The Carolina Hurricanes defeated the Vegas Golden Knights 3-0 on Sunday to capture their second Stanley Cup championship and their first title since 2006.

Taylor Hall, Jackson Blake, and Nikolaj Ehlers scored for Carolina, while goaltender Brandon Bussi made 22 saves to secure the shutout as the Hurricanes closed out the best-of-seven Final in six games on the road.

“State of shock,” said Taylor Hall, who is playing for his seventh NHL team after finally winning his first Stanley Cup. “Your mind wanders the last couple of days, thinking about what it might feel like out here, and it’s better than I could have expected. My career has taken a lot of different turns, but to end up here with this group and do it like this is amazing.”

Carolina captain Jordan Staal, who scored in five of the six Stanley Cup Final games, was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP. At 37, he became the oldest player in NHL history to win the award.

“It’s amazing. This is something I’ve been chasing since we got the first one,” Staal said, noting his trade to Carolina in June 2012. “You want to win it again and again. What a feeling, what a battle. The boys were grinding today—so many individual efforts.”

Hall opened the scoring less than four minutes into the game, finishing a long pass from defenseman Jaccob Slavin with a wrist shot past Vegas goaltender Carter Hart.

Bussi preserved Carolina’s lead late in the first period with a diving save on Pavel Dorofeyev during a Vegas power play, keeping the game 1-0 heading into intermission.

Blake doubled the lead in the second period, finishing a close-range snap shot after a pass from Logan Stankoven deflected in off Vegas forward Mitch Marner.

The Golden Knights nearly cut the deficit midway through the third period, but Jack Eichel’s shot hit the crossbar with Bussi out of position and without his stick.

Vegas pulled its goaltender in the final minutes for an extra attacker, but Carolina held firm under pressure before Ehlers sealed the victory with an empty-net goal.

The win capped a dominant postseason run for the Hurricanes, who finished as the top seed in the Eastern Conference and went 16-3 in the playoffs, marking one of the best postseason records since the NHL adopted the current format in 1987.

The Golden Knights, who previously won the Stanley Cup three years ago, were seeking their second championship after a strong playoff run that included a sweep of the Colorado Avalanche in the Western Conference Final. -Reporting by Frank Pingue in Toronto; Additional reporting by Rory Carroll in Los Angeles; Editing by Peter Rutherford and Clarence Fernandez/Reuters