RALEIGH, N.C. — A few hours before puck drop, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman held his state of the union presser, and as he always does, he rolled out all kinds of accolades and numbers and facts about the season.The message in his annual address has a similar theme every time: He feels the game is better than ever.Except that was not true for many years, even when the commissioner tried to tell us otherwise. Certainly not in the dead puck era of the early 2000s, when goals were hard to come by, and certainly not in the many years when head shots dominated headlines.But the NHL has indeed come a long way as far as the way the game is played today. There is more skill and speed in the modern game than we’ve ever seen.Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final on Tuesday night might have been one of the most exciting championship series openers ever.Really.We had 2-2, 3-3, 4-4, before Colton Sissons made the backhand pass of his career to set up Tomáš Hertl’s winner with 3:24 left in the third period.There were probably a lot of people who needed a cigarette after that adrenaline rush of a game.High octane, high-end, two playoff juggernaut teams coming into a full-on collision on the biggest stage of the season and delivering an absolute gem.“For sure, it’s easier to talk about being on the winning side,’’ Vegas goal machine Brett Howden said with a grin after the 5-4 win. “A lot of momentum swings back and forth, both ways. It must have been a really fun game for fans to watch, for everyone to watch.“I think both teams will go back and watch (video), there’s a lot of things we can clean up still. But super happy we were on top of this one.’’Oh, sure, both coaching staffs will focus on the defensive breakdowns and hope to deliver us 2-1 games the rest of the way.But I’m not sure the talent on both of these rosters will allow it. There’s a tantalizing tug-of-war at play in this final series between two opposing systems with deep lineups that strive to expose the other team’s mistakes.One could see the difficulty that people across the league had in picking a winner when I polled 49 coaches and team executives before the series. The final tally was 27-22 for Vegas, but those polled really felt it was hard to predict.“Two incredibly talented, well-constructed, deep rosters that play with a high degree of pace,’’ said one team executive for that poll. “Two incredible coaches who are among the best at motivating their teams. Two goaltenders who have both faced adversity yet are on incredible runs. This one is a “pick ’em” for me.’’