Carolina Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour spent weeks answering the same question about needing more goal-scoring pop from top-line forwards Andrei Svechnikov and Sebastian Aho.
"We need them to get going," Brind'Amour said early in the Stanley Cup Final.
Maybe now, with a maximum of two games left to determine who will hoist the Cup, they've found a breakthrough.
Svechnikov scored twice on power plays and Aho had just his second goal since April as the Hurricanes beat the Vegas Golden Knights 4-2 on Thursday night, moving within a victory of hoisting the Stanley Cup.
"It is the biggest game. It was for me," Svechnikov said. "The mentality was great. I couldn't sleep for the night (before)."
Game 6 is Sunday night in Las Vegas, with Carolina having a chance to win the Stanley Cup for the first time since Brind'Amour captained the Hurricanes to it the title in 2006. The goal now is for Svechnikov and Aho to carry the momentum forward from Game 5.
Svechnikov had the first two-goal performance of the playoffs and the fifth multi-goal playoff game of his career. He had wanted to be a bigger part of the production this spring, though that hadn't mattered as much with the Logan Stankoven-centered second line featuring Jackson Blake and Taylor Hall cooking throughout the playoffs.
Brind'Amour kept saying the two mainstays of the current eight-year playoff run were doing enough to contribute, it was just a matter of time before they'd score more. But as the Hurricanes pushed to the Stanley Cup Final, time was running out for Aho as the team's highest-paid player ($9.75 million this year) and Svechnikov as the team's third-highest ($7.75 million this year).
"Quite a decent (amount) of pressure, to be honest this playoffs," Svechnikov said. "It's just a new day was today."
Aho and Svechnikov each had four goals through 17 postseason games entering Thursday. Five teammates had more goals. So having them beat Carter Hart three times for goals was like a long-waited bonus.
"That hasn't really happened, and we're still here," Brind'Amour said. "So it doesn't necessarily have to be that way, but they have to have an impact in the game, whether it's on the scoresheet or doing other things. It certainly makes it a lot smoother if they're scoring. It takes a lot of pressure off other guys to do that, and I guess that's what happened tonight."
The game was tied 1-1 before second-period goals from Svechnikov and Aho in a six-minute stretch. First there was Svechnikov whippping the puck past Hart on the power play, followed by Aho scoring for the first time in this series and for only the second time in the last 14 games.
"Getting on the score sheet, he knows he needs to do that," Brind'Amour said of Aho. "He's playing all the power plays, getting all that time to cash in. It doesn't mean you're not playing well. And he was doing, all playoffs, he's done, I think, really well. But man, if we can get that out of him, that's just a big bonus for our team."
Svechnikov followed with a second goal for a 4-1 lead, a putaway at the right post off a sharp feed from Nikolaj Ehlers for one of his three assists.
"We know it's going to be hard," Svechnikov said about closing out the series. "That's the hardest trophy to win, and we just kind of got to play our game and keep the pressure on and hopefully we're going to keep the momentum."
