RALEIGH, N.C. – Of all the arenas for Tomáš Hertl to score the biggest goal of his life, it had to be here in Carolina.The place where his Stanley Cup dreams were effectively born. In front of a fanbase that waited 20 long years for its team’s return to the NHL’s championship series, only to be sent home disappointed from Tuesday’s game by a visiting player who holds the 2006 Hurricanes squad in the same esteem they do.Carolina’s only Stanley Cup victory locked in a core memory for Hertl. It gave him his first brush with the silver trophy as a 12-year-old, when former Hurricanes forward Josef Vašíček brought it to Prague that summer.“I remember the Cup coming to (his club team) Slavia Praha, where I was growing up,” Hertl recalled at the outset of this final. “I remember we were waiting in line and standing, he was signing (autographs) for us. He would take a picture. I was so young and it was a really cool moment.”That moment was eclipsed by Hertl staking the Vegas Golden Knights to a 1-0 lead over the Hurricanes in a rollicking start to the 2026 Final. Surprisingly, the game turned into a “last goal wins” kind of night and it came off Hertl’s stick with less than four minutes to play to secure a 5-4 victory.Hertl and linemate Colton Sissons opened the sliver of daylight they needed in Carolina’s man-to-man defense by working a cycling give-and-go. Sissons put the puck on Hertl’s stick with a feathery backhand pass before he buried it.The joyous celebration that followed?A mixture of jubilation and relief.Not only had Hertl endured a torturous 29-game goal drought that extended into the second round of these playoffs, he’d also waited 10 years to get back to a Stanley Cup Final after his only previous trip as a member of the San Jose Sharks. On Tuesday night, he revealed that a 30-minute conversation with former Sharks teammate Joe Pavelski is what helped shake him out of that funk a few weeks back — not a moment too soon for a Vegas team that has now seen him score four big goals in the last eight games.