RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- The Stanley Cup Final between the Carolina Hurricanes and the Vegas Golden Knights looks even in a lot of ways, with very little margin for error.
After Saturday night, Vegas leads the series 2-1. The action resumes Tuesday night for Game 4 in Las Vegas.
All games begin at 8 p.m. and can be seen on ABC11.
Check back here for live updates throughout the best-of-seven championship series.
There's a sold-out watch party at the Lenovo Center. ABC11 is there and also caught up wth Caniacs who made the trip to Las Vegas for Game 4 of the Stanely Cup Final on Thursday night.
Take a look at the sights and sounds below ahead of tonight's pivotal game.
In a Stanley Cup Final filled with more twists and turns than a Six Flags roller coaster, it's difficult to imagine what more could be in store when the Carolina Hurricanes visit the Vegas Golden Knights for Game 4 on Tuesday.
There certainly is plenty at stake.
Should the Golden Knights win and take a 3-1 series lead, they will be in an almost unbeatable position. Teams with such an advantage in the final are 38-1, the one defeat occurring 84 years ago when Detroit lost a 3-0 lead and fell to Toronto.
A Hurricanes victory would not only even the best-of-seven series, but regain home-ice advantage with potentially two of the three remaining games in Carolina.
Good luck trying to predict where this series will go. What was largely expected to be a high-checking, low-scoring championship round has been wide open at times, with each team capitalizing on the other's mistakes. The teams have combined to score 25 goals, the highest total through three games in the final since the New York Islanders and Minnesota North Stars had 30 in 1981.
There have been blown leads of at least two goals in each game. Vegas rallied from such a deficit in Game 1 and Carolina did it in Game 2.
Then came the real doozy in Saturday night's Game 3 when the Golden Knights led 4-0 well into the third period before the Hurricanes scored three goals in a record 39 seconds. Carolina eventually forced overtime, but the Golden Knights won in double OT when Shea Theodore bounced a puck off the boards that caromed off goalie Brandon Bussi's skate.
Because of course it did.
Bussi, who hadn't played in two months, entered in the third period after coach Rod Brind'Amour had seen enough of Frederik Andersen. The Golden Knights couldn't figure out Bussi until that final wacky shot, so he might start Tuesday. Brind'Amour said he knows who will start, but isn't letting on.
- The Associated Press contributed.
Carolina Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour is wearing his poker face well in Las Vegas.
Brind'Amour has decided who will be in net Tuesday night against the Vegas Golden Knights in Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final.
He's just not telling anyone.
"It's always a suspenseful thing around here that I have to hold on to," Brind'Amour said Monday after practice. "It seems to have taken a life of its own, so I kind of enjoy it."
Vegas leads the series 2-1 after a wild 5-4 double-overtime win on Saturday night. The teams split the first two games in Carolina.
Starting goaltender Frederik Andersen didn't practice, which Brind'Amour described as a maintenance day, but backup Brandon Bussi was on the ice along with Pyotr Kochetkov. All three were in rotation during the first three months of the regular season.
Asked what the coaches were telling him about his chances of playing in Game 4, Bussi smirked: "You know, Rod's our coach, right?"
Andersen was brilliant for the Hurricanes, playing every minute of their first 15 playoff games before Bussi replaced him after Vegas took a 4-0 lead after the second period of Game 3.
Bussi shut down the Knights until Shea Theodore's game-winning shot caromed off the end boards and went in after the goaltender inadvertently deflected it with his left skate 5:38 into the second overtime.
Brind'Amour told reporters on Sunday he didn't anticipate "a lot of changes" to the lineup, but would "see how (Andersen is) feeling."
On Monday, the coach quashed the notion that Andersen may have suffered a head injury when Ivan Barbashev's left hip viciously collided with the netminder's head. Andersen dropped to the ice face-first, where he lay flat with his arms sprawled out.
Bussi, who hadn't played since April 14 before replacing Andersen, said his mindset doesn't change on how to prepare for a game, whether as a backup or starter.
"It's the same thing for me every day," Bussi said. "I put my head down, I work hard. I just do the same thing every time. It's easier that way."
Meanwhile, the Hurricanes said they have confidence in whoever leads the team onto the ice inside T-Mobile Arena on Tuesday night.
"Freddie has been unbelievable, Bussi's been unbelievable this year, and Koch, before he got injured, he was incredible," Nikolaj Ehlers said. "So we got a ton of confidence. We want to play the same hockey that we know we can play. In the end it doesn't matter who's in the net, we're going to do our best to limit their chances and give them less hard work to do during the games.
"It doesn't matter. We have full confidence in all three goalies."
Taylor Hall said the smaller intangibles to consider might be the goaltenders' styles of play and how to react when an explosive team such as Vegas is firing on net.
"Bussi plays an aggressive style, so I would say it's more about taking away the other options around the ice a bit more so that he can just focus on that shot if we do give up a chance," Hall said. "Where Freddie's more patient, and he's more of a, 'let's see what happens.' He' able to kind of save some backdoor plays and things like that."
- The Associated Press contributed.
Mike Whiting, better known to Carolina Hurricanes fans as "Big Mike," has spent 25 years rallying crowds inside the Lenovo Center with his booming horn and signature "Let's go Canes" chant. The longtime fan and Canes ambassador says this postseason has been "electric."
Whiting, who can often be found on the concourse greeting fellow Caniacs and showing off his 2006 Stanley Cup ring, said nothing compares to the atmosphere of playoff hockey.
"You got the lights, the sounds, you can hear the players yelling from the ice skate scraping on the ice. It's like a multi-sensory experience. You have to be here," he said.
Whiting sits in Section 229 for every home game, right beside the siren, bringing his "infectious energy" and, of course, his horn.
"It's just amazing, the atmosphere and being around all the people, everybody rooting for the same team," he said.
