Tomas Hertl a hero for Vegas after getting call from ex-Sharks teammate

During one of the lengthiest scoring droughts of his NHL career earlier this spring, Vegas Golden Knights forward Tomas Hertl got a call from longtime San Jose Sharks teammate Joe Pavelski offering some advice.

Whatever Pavelski said to Hertl, now in his second full season with the Golden Knights, seems to be working.

Since going the final 20 regular-season games and the first nine games of his year’s playoffs without a goal, Hertl has regained his old form, and in the opening game of the Stanley Cup Final, he scored arguably the biggest goal of his career.

Hertl scored an even-strength go-ahead goal with 3:24 left in the third period to help lift the Golden Knights to a 5-4 win over the Carolina Hurricanes in Game 1 of the Cup Final on Tuesday at the Lenovo Center in Raleigh.

On the goal, Hertl fired a puck into the corner to the right of the Hurricanes’ net, then later retrieved the puck off a pass from teammate Colton Sissons.

Hertl skated around the back of the net, passed to Sissons, shook a check from Hurricanes defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere, took a return pass from Sissons, skated to the slot, and beat goalie Frederik Andersen with a high, blocker-side wrist shot.

Hertl’s last goal of the regular season came on March 4 when he scored in overtime to lift the Golden Knights to a 4-3 win over the Detroit Red Wings at Little Caesars Arena. His next goal came on May 10 during the third period of Game 4 of Vegas’ second-round playoff series against the Anaheim Ducks, who won that game 4-3 but lost the series to the Golden Knights in six games.

Including that night, Hertl has now scored four times in his last eight games, as Vegas took home ice advantage away from the Hurricanes with Game 2 back in Raleigh on Thursday.

Hertl and Pavelski were teammates with the Sharks from 2013 to 2019, when Pavelski left San Jose and signed as a free agent with the Dallas Stars. Pavelski had been with the Sharks for 13 seasons, spending the last four as the team’s captain.

“I had like 30 minutes to talk with him, and he actually helped me a lot, because we’ve been pretty close and he’s a great goal scorer, been through a lot, and he called me and talked to me about just what to do,” Hertl told Daily Faceoff. “And I think (after) I was (talking) with him, the next day was the Anaheim game, and I scored (my) first goal, so it was really nice from him. And he’s still texting me.”

In his 18-year career, which ended after the 2023-24 season, Pavelski had 476 goals in 1,332 regular-season games and 71 goals in 201 playoff games.

Hertl is no slouch himself, having scored 276 goals in the regular season, including 24 this year, and now has scored 32 times in 97 career playoff games.

“It wasn’t like I wasn’t getting chances,” Hertl said of his drought. “That’s when you start to worry, when you don’t have chances for a couple of games. But if your chances keep coming, you just try the same thing, and eventually it was kind of a lucky bounce, and everything started.”

Hertl, 32, spent the first 10-plus seasons of his NHL career with the Sharks before he requested a trade to a contending team. Just before the 2024 NHL trade deadline, Hertl was dealt to the Golden Knights.

Tuesday’s game was Hertl’s first in a Cup Final since Game 2 of the Sharks’ series against the Pittsburgh Penguins on June 1, 2016. Hertl’s right knee was injured in that game, which the Sharks lost in overtime, and he did not play the rest of the series. The Penguins won the Cup in six games.

Hertl said he got goose bumps right before the start of Tuesday’s game when the NHL brought out the Stanley Cup to center ice.

“Last time, I was still kind of a kid, just more having fun,” Hertl told Sportsnet of his 2016 Cup Final experience when he was 22. “Now it’s like in your head how long the journey was to get back, how hard it is every year, and what an opportunity. Obviously, you never know if you get another chance, and you just want to leave everything and hope to get it done.

“It will be a tough series, but obviously it’s a great start for us.”