RALEIGH, N.C. — When the Carolina Hurricanes arrive at T-Mobile Arena for Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final against the host Vegas Golden Knights on Saturday (8 p.m. ET: ABC, SN, TVAS, CBC), there’s a good chance they’ll get a glimpse of The Big Apple Coaster at the adjoining New York-New York Hotel & Casino.
They’ll certainly be able to relate upon seeing the famed roller coaster, given the ups and downs they’ve experienced through the first 123:56 of this series, which has featured, in no particular order:
Both teams having traded multigoal comeback wins, with each specifically having erased a 2-0 deficit en route to victory.
Dramatic, late winning goals: Tomas Hertl giving Vegas a 5-4 victory in Game 1 by scoring with 3:24 left, and Carolina responding with Seth Jarvis’ heroics at 3:56 of overtime to give the Hurricanes a 4-3 win in Game 2 that evened the best-of-7 series 1-1.
A disallowed goal by Ivan Barbashev with 5:00 remaining in the third period of Game 2 that would have given Vegas a 3-2 lead, and a subsequent coach’s challenge by the Golden Knights that was unsuccessful.
Add it all up, and it’s provided a topsy-turvy showcase of riveting entertainment that has left neutral fans fascinated, and coaches and players on both sides both exhilarated and devastated, often in the span of just a few minutes.
“It’s obviously a new series, a five-game series now,” Hurricanes defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere said Friday before his team left for Las Vegas. “Obviously a lot of emotions throughout the games too. For almost 50 minutes there it’s kind of low, and then kind of even, then really high, then low again, and then high. It’s been a roller coaster, for sure.”
The key, he said, is to stay grounded and not get carried away.
“It’s just managing (your feelings),” he said. “We’re still human beings. We’re going to be nervous out there and have emotions, but the more you do it, the more you do anything, you get used to it. So it’s just trying to holster that and bring it all in and focus on the task at hand.”
No one, at times, has done that better than Frederik Andersen.
In the Eastern Conference Final against the Montreal Canadiens, playing Games 3 and 4 on the road at Bell Centre in an electric atmosphere unequaled anywhere else in the game, with deafening chants of “Ole, ole, ole” ringing through the building, the Hurricanes goaltender managed to block out the white noise — literally — in a 3-2 overtime win followed by a 4-0 shutout. It’s an example of a player remaining even keeled when there is chaos going on around him.