NHL playoffs: Hurricanes stay alive; Stars take 2-1 series lead
Raleigh, N.C. — The Carolina Hurricanes turned their last stand into a season-extending victory. Incredibly, it was the struggling power play that got them there.
Brady Skjei scored on the power play with 3:11 left to help the Hurricanes beat the New York Rangers, 4-3, on Saturday night, staving off a sweep by winning Game 4 of the second-round playoff series.
Skjei's shot from the the point came off a feed from Tuevo Teravainen, with the puck zipping past Igor Shesterkin to catch the upper-right corner of the goal and bang into the net. That was Carolina's first goal with the man advantage in 17 tries in the series, and it finally pushed Carolina ahead for good on a night when the Hurricanes squandered a two-goal lead.
No matter, though. The Hurricanes survived to fight another day in the NHL playoffs.
“I don't care," coach Rod Brind'Amour said of whether there was extra significance to getting the winner with the man advantage. “Not tonight. We've just got to get Ws at this time of year.”
The Rangers get another closeout chance Monday night with the 3-1 lead when the series returns to Madison Square Garden for Game 5.
Evgeny Kuznetsov, Stefan Noesen and Sebastian Aho each scored for Carolina, while Frederik Andersen finished with 22 saves as the Hurricanes try to become the fifth team to rally from a 3-0 deficit to win a playoff series and first since 2014.
Everything started with Carolina showing plenty of jump in the first period, running out to 2-0 and 3-1 leads to build momentum.
“Obviously we played a lot of aggression,” said Aho, who finished a feed from Jake Guentzel from near the slot for the 3-1 lead with 4:31 left in the first period. "We kind of did what we needed to do. That was a strong start. We want to do that again (in Game 5).”
The Hurricanes tweaked their power-play unit to put Skjei on the top group. And roughly 30 seconds after a tripping penalty by Ryan Lindgren, Skjei converted the winner to send Teravainen and Aho rushing over to hug him and have a tense home crowd roaring in gleeful relief, even if Skjei felt “definitely celebration” instead.
“I feel like going into every game, you try to feel confident and feel you can be the guy to do it,” Skjei said. “Obviously it doesn't happen every night or that often. But that's kind of our mindset going forward here, just win the day.”
Will Cuylle, Barclay Goodrow and Alexis Lafreniere scored for the Rangers, while Shesterkin finished with 27 saves.
“It’s tough, we dug ourselves a hole early,” Rangers coach Peter Laviolette said. “I don’t think it was because we weren’t ready to play. … We’ve got to come out a little bit sharper than that.
“We were competing, we were working, we were trying to do our job offensively. But there’s some things defensively that I thought we could’ve been a little bit better in the first period.”
New York had won their first seven playoff games after sweeping Washington in Round 1 and taking the first three of this series, and had a chance to become the first team to reach 8-0 in a postseason since Edmonton won its first nine games on the way to claiming the Stanley Cup in 1985.
Lafreniere had the Rangers within reach of that when he capitalized on a mistake by Andersen, who let his left skate extend past the post as Lafreniere skated in on the right side. As he skated toward the boards, Lafreniere bounced the puck off Andersen’s left hip, then into the net for the 3-3 tie at 2:04 of the third period that deflated the home crowd.
The series began with the potential for heavy drama considering the Metropolitan Division-winning Rangers also won the Presidents’ Trophy as the league’s top regular-season team, while the Hurricanes — in the playoffs for the sixth straight season — finished three points behind and entered the NHL playoffs as the favorite to win the Stanley Cup, according to Bet MGM Sportsbook.
The tight finishes have been there with the Rangers winning 4-3 in both Game 1 and 2 — the latter in double overtime — and then taking Game 3 in Raleigh on Artemi Panarin’s OT score for the 3-2 win. But the Rangers had been winning the special-teams battle in a landslide, outscoring the Hurricanes 5-0 with four power-play goals and a shorthanded score while Carolina’s No. 2-ranked regular-season power play entered Saturday at 0 for 15 in the series.
Carolina came up empty on its first power play, but Skjei finally gave the Hurricanes a desperately needed breakthrough.
“I thought the penalty kill was still good," Laviolette said. "They took a shot from the point, he hammered it, it had eyes. It was a tough corner shot, traffic in front of the net. There was a lot going on there.”
Stars 4, Avalanche 1
Denver — Tyler Seguin and Logan Stankoven scored two goals each and goaltender Jake Oettinger thwarted Colorado's high-powered offense, stanching the Avalanche's third-period comeback prowess in a 4-1 win Saturday night that gave the Dallas Stars the upper hand in their Western Conference second-round series.
“I don't think a coach has ever seen a perfect game, but I'll tell you that's as close to a perfect road game as you can play, in my mind, in this situation," Stars coach Peter DeBoer said after Dallas took a 2-1 series lead.
“We knew they going to come out guns blazing in the first period. You knew their home record. They had challenged their best players, their coach had, after the last game,” DeBoer said. “So, we knew we were going to get a lot thrown at us early in that game. And our composure throughout the night I thought was outstanding.”
The Stars have yet to play from behind in this series against Colorado's high-octane offense led by Cale Makar, Valeri Nichushkin, Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen.
Dallas killed three power plays for the second straight game and Seguin scored the tiebreaking goal in the second period for a 2-1 lead that Oettinger held up – he stopped 29 of 30 shots – with a pair of empty netters in the closing minutes finally gave Dallas some breathing room.
“We knew coming into this rink, how these guys play. And we also know how we play on the road," Seguin said. “So we knew it’d be a big challenge. I think next game is going to be a bigger challenge.”
Game 4 is Monday night at Ball Arena, where the Avalanche are now 33-10-1, including 2-1 in the playoffs. The Stars were an NHL-best 26-10-5 on the road during the season and have won three of four playoff games away from American Airlines Center.
The Avs pulled goaltender Alexander Georgiev with just under 2 minutes remaining and Seguin scored an empty-netter with 1:37 to go and Stankoven added a second empty-netter at with 28 seconds remaining.
“That was one of the best third periods we’ve played the whole postseason," Oettinger said. "Just being smart and not taking penalties. I don’t think they had many scoring chances in the third so we learned from our mistakes in Games 1 and 2.”
The Stars regained home-ice advantage in the best-of-seven series by throttling Colorado's high-powered offense that entered the night having averaging 5 goals a game in their first seven playoff games.
Nichushkin was held scoreless for the first time in these playoffs. He was looking to become the third player in NHL history to have an eight-game goal streak during the playoffs.
The Stars took a 2-1 lead into the third period after breaking the tie on an odd-man rush with just under five minutes left in the second. Evgenii Dadonov skated down the left side and sent a pass through the slot that Seguin redirected past Georgiev, who had 19 saves on 21 shots.
The Stars led 1-0 after one period despite getting just three shots on goal in the first 18 minutes. Miro Heiskanen fed Stankoven in the slot after a turnover in the Avalanche’s zone by Devon Toews and Stankoven beat Georgiev with a wrister inside the left post with 1:21 remaining.
That snapped a nearly two-month scoring drought for Stankoven, the 21-year-old rookie who made his NHL debut with six goals in his first dozen games from Feb. 24-March 20, then went 21 games without a goal, including Dallas' first nine playoff games.
“It’s always nice to contribute," Stankoven said. “I feel like been doing the right things but just couldn’t find the back of the net.”
Colorado coach Jared Bednar lamented his ineffective special teams, which is 0 for 6 on the power play the last two games.
“Could have been a difference maker for us,” he said, “especially early in the game.”
Bednar had called out Rantanen and MacKinnon after Game 2 and he said he thought they both responded well even though that energy and effort didn’t produce another comeback or offensive onslaught.
Colorado's only breakthrough came when MacKinnon stickhandled through three Stars players and lifted a backhand that Oettinger stopped. The rebound landed in the crease behind Oettinger and Rantanen tapped it in to tie it 1-all midway through the second period.
“We did a lot of great things," MacKinnon said, "had a lot of chances, a lot of good looks, just Oettinger was great and we made a couple of big errors that cost us.”