What Vegas did to Adin Hill before the Cup Final came back to bite them against Carolina
Photo credit: James Guillory-Imagn Images
The viral clip of Vegas players bypassing Adin Hill wasn't filmed after Game 6. It came from earlier this season, and that changes everything.
When the footage resurfaced Sunday night, the explanation that circulated was charitable: a team crushed by losing the Stanley Cup on home ice doesn't have the emotional bandwidth for rituals.
It's a reasonable read in that context.
It wasn't.
The footage dates from earlier this season, when the Vegas Golden Knights skated past Hill without a single acknowledgment.
That detail collapses the post-loss grief argument entirely.
Hill carries a $6.25 million cap hit on a six-year deal running through 2031.
He was not a stranger or a depth filler.
He was a franchise-level investment that the room was already treating like background noise before the Final ever started.
Carolina did the opposite and won the Cup
Carolina Hurricanes backup Brandon Bussi was a waiver pickup from Florida.
He had never played an NHL game before this season.
Kevin Papetti noted the stark difference between how the Hurricanes treated their non-regulars and what the Vegas clip showed.
Bussi was embraced, developed, and trusted.
When Pyotr Kochetkov was lost to season-ending surgery, Bussi stepped into the Stanley Cup Final and backstopped Carolina to the championship.
The Hurricanes didn't treat him like a backup.
They treated him like he belonged - and he delivered.
What the clip actually reveals
The viral moment has been framed as an optics problem born of heartbreak.
The timeline says otherwise.
If a $6.25 million goaltender was already being bypassed during the regular season, that is a culture question the Vegas Golden Knights now have to answer honestly this offseason.
Carolina's culture was visible long before they lifted the Cup.
Vegas's culture, it turns out, may have been visible long before they lost it.
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