The Carolina Hurricanes and Vegas Golden Knights. Who will lift the Stanley Cup?
With the final starting in Raleigh on Wednesday night, it will be clear no earlier than June 10th.
Here are six storylines to follow:
Mitch Marner
A look at the current play-off points leaderboard isn't all that surprising. Or is it? The sharpshooter Marner's career was stifled in the cursed Toronto, where in nine seasons he never got past the second round of the play-offs.
But one of last summer's biggest trades sent him to Vegas, and now, in his very first year with the team, he could win the sacred cup.
As a young boy, he admired it in the local Hall of Fame, where it's on display. "I think every kid who grew up in Toronto did that," he smiled.
The coming days will show whether he made the right move on the transfer market last year. Before moving to the city of gambling, he actually turned down an offer from… Carolina.
Rod Brind'Amour
It's a unique run. Since January 23rd, 2000, when he was traded to Carolina from Philadelphia, he hasn't missed a single one of the 174 play-off games the club has played.
Brind'Amour simply moved from captain to coach. And now he could become only the seventh person in history to win the Stanley Cup with the same club as both player and coach.
The last to do so was Toe Blake behind the Montreal bench in 1956.
His impact is obvious. From 2010 to 2018, the Hurricanes didn't make the play-offs at all. For the 2018/19 season, management brought in Brind’Amour – and they haven't missed the post-season since.
And what a dominant run this year! Across three series, the club has lost just one game in total and is the favourite for the final. "But Vegas is a different calibre," Brind'Amour warned.
John Tortorella
As recently as March 18th, John Tortorella was sitting in the ESPN studio as a pundit. The very next day, he was coaching the Vegas players, replacing the dismissed Bruce Cassidy, who had led the team to Stanley Cup glory three years ago.
And now, this fiery coach is close to repeating that success, something he last achieved in 2004 with Tampa Bay.
Since then, he's coached 1,460 games. A 22-year gap marks the longest break between two finals for a coach in league history.
Even though he's adapted his methods to the times, especially in terms of communication, his players say one thing hasn't changed.
"The very first thing he'll tell you is, 'You're going to block shots'. Otherwise, you don't play. And he doesn't care who you are," recalled Mike Rupp, who played under him for three years with the New York Rangers.
Jordan Staal
On the other side, Jordan Staal will be chasing a record similar to Tortorella's. The Hurricanes captain and third-line centre already celebrated play-off glory with Pittsburgh back in June 2009.
Now, 17 years later, he could add another, and no one in the league has waited longer for a second title. Until now, that record belonged to Chris Chelios with 16 years.
Staal is a club record holder, having played 1,074 games for them in total. He's now nearing the end of his 14th season in Carolina.
"And right now, there's no one in our dressing room more excited than me," he said about returning to the limelight at the end of his career.
But that doesn't mean he's just making up the numbers. At 37, he's just scored 20 goals in the regular season for the first time in 10 years.
Frederik Andersen and Carter Hart
The final will feature a fascinating goalie duel. In Carolina's net is the Dane Frederik Andersen, while at the other end of the rink is Hart.
Hart only signed with the team in October after being cleared of a long-running sexual assault case. And he played just 18 games in the regular season, ranking him only 67th among goalies…
He was even the third choice at the club. But Tortorella trusts him, and since the start of April, Hart has missed just one game.
In play-off save percentage, he's second (92.4%), with his opponent leading the way (93.1%). In the conference final against Montreal, Andersen even went 160:13 minutes without conceding a goal, a club record.
He's won 12 of his 13 starts in this year's play-offs. Alongside fellow countryman Nikolaj Ehlers, he could follow in the footsteps of the only Danish winner of the trophy so far, Lars Eller.
And he'll have a special motivation to win. For his long-time agent and close friend Claude Lemieux, who took his own life just a few days ago.
"I always dreamed of telling him a story with the Cup. He told me so many," he recalled before the series began, thinking of the four-time ring winner.
