RALEIGH, North Carolina – Sebastian Aho and Jordan Martinook scored 9 seconds apart late in the third period to help the Carolina Hurricanes come back from a three-goal deficit and defeat the New York Islanders 5-3 on Monday night to take a lead 2-0 in the first round. playoff series improbably.
Aho struck first by redirecting Andrei Svechnikov’s shot off the right post behind Semyon Varlamov with 2:15 remaining to tie the game at 3. After an Islanders handoff on the ensuing faceoff, Martinook raced in to beat Noah Dobson on the puck along the boards and then pushed him towards the same post with an attempted bypass behind the net.
The puck hit Varlamov’s left skate and slid into the net for the 4-3 lead with 2:06 remaining, prompting Hurricanes players to attack a leaping Martinook amid an overwhelming roar from a shocked crowd.
Jake Guentzel scored an empty score in the final minute to seal this, which ended with frustrations mounting for the Islanders, several scrums between the teams and several players walking to the locker room early.
The series shifts north for the next two games, with Game 3 set for Thursday night.
This was a brutal finish for the Islanders, who used goals from Kyle Palmieri, Bo Horvat and Anders Lee – the last being a forehand-to-backhand shot at the top of the power play – to take an early 3-0 lead. second period. And it left them ready for a split after losing 3-1 in Game 1 despite a performance that left coach Patrick Roy encouraged by his team’s play.
Instead, New York fell apart in crushing fashion, starting with Varlamov taking a penalty on Stefan Noesen to put Carolina on a power play. Teuvo Teravainen converted the man advantage by finishing off a Guentzel advance at 13:01 of the second, reducing the deficit to 3-1 and bringing life to a stunned, silent arena.
And from then on, the Hurricanes maintained the pressure, tilting the ice towards Varlamov with sustained and devastating changes in the offensive zone. That included Aho and Seth Jarvis hitting the post late in the second, and then Guentzel in the third, before Jarvis buried a Jordan Staal cross-ice cross to bring Carolina within 3-2 at 10:43 of the third.
The Hurricanes finished with a 39-12 shot advantage, with Varlamov facing 16 in the final period alone before finishing with 34 saves. New York, which had just one shot on goal in the third period, also had a goal disallowed when Kyle McLean’s redirect from Jarvis to Andersen came with his stick in the air.
Andersen finished with nine saves for Carolina.
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AP NHL Playoffs: and
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