LAS VEGAS — When it was over Sunday, when the dream had ended, when another third-period comeback just wasn’t in the cards, when yet another stop was made by Brandon Bussi, a fact stood out about this Stanley Cup Final:

The Vegas Golden Knights lost to a better team.

Certainly one that played better when it mattered most.

Carolina is your Stanley Cup champion and deservedly so, having beaten Vegas 3-0 in Game 6 of this best-of-seven series at T-Mobile Arena.

You can’t win if you can’t score, and the Knights were, much like last year when eliminated by Edmonton in the second round, handcuffed to finish those Grade-A chances they created.

And there were more than enough to make this another dramatic ending had they done so.

But they couldn’t and for it, like in 2018 when falling to Washington in the Cup Final here, had to swallow the truth that another team was skating around their rink holding aloft the toughest of trophies to capture.

“You have 16 (playoff) teams with the same goal,” Vegas defenseman Brayden McNabb said. “It’s a fun ride until it comes to an end, and then it’s tough.

“It was a wild and crazy year, but we pulled it together and got here together as a group. We did a great job and played our asses off these whole playoffs and just came up short. It’s going to hurt. It’s going to sting. We’re proud of how we got here, how we played, but it wasn’t good enough.”

Fact: This series changed when the Hurricanes replaced goalie Frederik Andersen with Bussi in the third period of Game 3.

That was the spark Carolina needed, and it showed all the way up until he was mobbed by teammates as the final seconds slipped away Sunday.

It’s not that the Knights, who at one point led the series 2-1, didn’t have their chances against Bussi. They did. Hit posts. Came oh-so-close to solving him on different occasions. They just never could.

“He came in and played well,” McNabb said. “We had chances. A couple bounces could have gone here or there, but they didn’t. When they’re playing well and are within their structure, they’re a hard team to beat.”

Maybe had the Knights gotten to their forecheck better, more success would have come. Maybe had star Jack Eichel been able to find net in the series, an additional spark would have been lit under them. Maybe this and maybe that. It didn’t happen for them and a lot of that had to do with Carolina.

Respect the run by Vegas. Heck, there were points in the season where you wondered if it would make the playoffs at all.

Truth: This is a different team now than when John Tortorella took over as coach with eight games remaining in the regular season.

It certainly didn’t own the confidence of a side capable of doing much postseason damage at all, much less coming so close to winning it all. It didn’t believe in itself as it does now.

A winning culture might have been established long ago within the room of the Golden Knights, but it has even been more improved these past few months.

“Not a good feeling right now, and it’s unfortunate it had to come to an end this way,” captain Mark Stone said. “But I’m so proud to be part of this organization and to lead this team. Proud to play with every single guy that steps into our locker room.

“I look at everything that happened this season, the ups and downs, and to give ourselves a chance to play for this is pretty impressive. It just doesn’t make things better. It kills me to be standing here right now. Just pick ourselves up off the ground and get ready for September, I guess.”

There will be change because there always is. The room will look different then. Who knows what name might be behind the bench running things. Tortorella? Someone else?

But there is plenty here to continue the winning ways. They are good enough. They always seem good enough.

They just weren’t this series. Carolina was better. It deserved to lift the Cup, to celebrate, to be the ones crying tears of joy instead of sadness.

For the Knights, it’s a bitter end to a special run.

Someone has to finish second. And with it comes as empty a feeling as there is.

“It sucks,” defenseman Shea Theodore said, “to come all this way and lose.”

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