We've never seen anything like this.

Well, there was probably something like this in the '70s, back when they would let a team with like 24 wins go to the Cup Final. I'm not gonna go back that far.

But in the cap era? We've never seen anything like this. Two teams that absolutely tore through the first three rounds. Dispatched their opponents with a yawn. Put a lot of distance between themselves and the field by a lot of metrics. Not the least of those metrics was in winning the goaltending battle round after round.

Then they get to the Stanley Cup Final, and neither team can find a goalie who's capable of stopping traffic. Through four games, Carolina and Vegas have a combined save percentage of… .854. That's 32 goals in about 270 minutes of hockey. And that doesn't include the one empty netter in this series, scored by Nikolaj Ehlers tonight.

I can put it another way for you: The goaltending in this series is so bad that Jordan Staal is the first player to score five goals in the first four games of a Cup Final since Mario Lemieux. "Scoring like Lemieux," not to mention the dozens of high-scoring Hall of Famers who have been to a Cup Final in the last 35ish years, is not why Staal shows up to the rink and that's certainly not how Rod Brind'Amour wants to use him. Any offense he provides is a bonus, and right now he's paying out like a slot machine.

But the permissiveness at both ends of the ice is historic for the cap era, by a wide margin:

I posted during the game about how this feels like a series where neither team can trust any of its goalies, and when was the last time that happened? A few people responded "2010" in short order. That's certainly true. There were 45 goals scored on real human goalies in that six-game series. And since this year's Cup Final is gonna go six games at minimum, there's a real chance these teams make 45 look like child's play. Either team in this series would kill for the combined .877 save percentage from Antti Niemi, Brian Boucher, and Michael Leighton.

The number of Cup Finals in which both teams scored at least three-plus goals in each of their first four games can be counted on one hand with a couple fingers left over. It has to be frustrating for the coaches.

So, Rod Brind'Amour didn't have a tough decision when it came to pulling Freddie Andersen on Saturday or playing Brandon Bussi in Game 4. Depending on Andersen's health, since he was apparently designated as the EBUG tonight, the choice isn't especially difficult as the series shifts back to Raleigh and a best-of-three. Easy call for Game 5, isn't it?

But think about John Tortorella on the other bench. Carter Hart's save percentage in this series is down to .861. He allows goals not only in bunches, but at inopportune times. I went into the week thinking there was just flat-out no chance Adin Hill got a second of ice time in this series. Now I'm not so sure. Because Carolina switched goalies and won tonight (don't look up his save percentage!) and now any mistake — by a goalie or the skaters in front of him — is going to feel like it's the one that leads to the other team winning the Cup. Tortorella also doesn't have any obligation to stick around with this organization beyond next week, so why not have a little fun with it? The risk here is obvious, since Hill hasn't been The Guy for them in months, and he was borderline unplayable when he was, with an .870 in the regular season.

And Tortorella could be sitting there going, "If we were getting .870 goaltending, we'd be up 3-1 in this series. Minimum." It's unbelievable, but here we are.

There's been something like seven lead changes in this series through just four games. That doesn't happen in any round, let alone the Stanley Cup Final. But when neither team has any reason to believe in their goalies, at least it's an entertaining product.