RALEIGH, N.C. -- The Carolina Hurricanes had spent the NHL playoffs waiting for their power play to get going, along with top-line performers Andrei Svechnikov and Sebastian Aho.
And they had spent the first four games of the Stanley Cup Final being outplayed in critical second-period sequences.
On Thursday night, it all came together, aligning to bring the Hurricanes within a victory of winning the Cup.
Svechnikov scored twice and Aho added a second-period goal in a breakout offensive game for both, helping the Hurricanes beat the Vegas Golden Knights 4-2 for a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven series.
"I liked our effort for sure, and I hope we're getting better," coach Rod Brind'Amour said. "I think there's certain areas of our game that are starting to look a lot like we need it to look. But I do think there's still another level that we're going to need to get to find that next one."
Captain Jordan Staal found the net again for the fifth straight game in this series after Vegas had taken a 1-0 first-period lead, while Brandon Bussi finished with 23 saves in his second career postseason start.
Game 6 is Sunday night in Las Vegas, with the Hurricanes playing for the chance to hoist the Stanley Cup for the first time since Brind'Amour captained them to the title in 2006.
Aho's goal in the second period marked his first of the series, coming when Sean Walker found him cutting to the left side after Jordan Martinook -- swapped with Seth Jarvis to work alongside Aho and Svechnikov on the top line -- won a puck battle behind the net on the forecheck.
Then there was Svechnikov, who entered Thursday with four postseason goals before striking twice on the power play. On the first, he whipped the puck past Carter Hart on the right side for a 2-1 lead in the second period. On the second, he had a short putaway at the post off a sharp feed from Nikolaj Ehlers for a 4-1 lead, one of three assist for Ehlers on the night that included him having two delay-of-game penalties for putting a puck over the glass.
Before those second-period scores, Vegas had outscored Carolina 9-1 in the second period during the series.
And unlike most multigoal leads in what has been a wild and thrilling series, this one held up with Bussi doing enough to stave off Vegas' late push to climb back in it.
"It required everything we have," Staal said on the ESPN broadcast.