The Hurricanes extended their short-handed goal streak to three games for the first time in franchise history, overtaking first place for most short-handed goals on the season at 12.
Carolina (49-21-6) surrendered the lead twice against the New York Islanders (42-31-5), but picked up the energy late in the second period to walk away with a 4-3 win. This face-off between two of the top contenders in the Metropolitan division highlighted the intensity, grit and playoff level effort these teams are capable of bringing as the postseason approaches.
With back-and-forth play throughout the first two periods, the game-winner wasn’t on the board until 24 seconds into the final period. Center Mathew Barzal lost control of the puck near the neutral zone under pressure from defenseman K’Andre Miller. Reading the play, Miller spotted winger Andrei Svechnikov skating up the ice and delivered a precise pass. Svechnikov then found center Seth Jarvis driving towards the net, and set him up with a clean feed. Jarvis wristed the puck into the net, recording the final goal from the Canes.
Late in the second period, with the Islanders on the power play, defenseman Jaccob Slavin won the puck in the Canes’ defensive zone and sent a long pass to Jarvis. Center Sebastian Aho skated parallel to Jarvis waiting for the pass to come. Sending the puck under the stick of the defenseman, Aho received the puck and fired past goaltender Ilya Sorokin to take a 3-2 lead, and later on became the game-tying goal.
“[Slavin] made a great play there kind of holding on to it, letting me and [Aho] get up the ice,” Jarvis said. “That’s something we’ve gotten a lot better at…They know we’re looking for offense, so they’ve done a really good job holding on to it. Great pass by [Slavin], and then just executing was the biggest thing, and [Aho] scoring was huge.”
Just a few minutes before the goal from Aho, winger Jackson Blake sent a long shot towards the net that was blocked by Sorokin and sent wide. Center Logan Stankoven, bodying the opponent out of the way, got to the puck and sent it across the paint for Blake to send through the pads of Sorokin and tie the game at two.
“[Stankoven] was battling in that corner over there,” Blake said. “Right when I saw he had possession, I just tried to dive down and get lost a little bit. He made an unbelievable play to find me there in the slot, and fortunately, it went in.”
The Islanders were inching in on Carolina in the final minutes, but fell short. Even though they scored a single goal in each period and nine players tallied a point, it wasn’t enough against the top team in the Eastern Conference.
“We started great,” head coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “In the last minute, we got a little hairy, but overall, I can’t say enough. That was pretty impressive. Considering what’s at stake, I thought our guys played the way we want them to and we deserved tonight.”
The Hurricanes travel to Ottawa to take the ice against the Senators on Sunday, April 4, with a 5 p.m. puck drop.
