*Photo from the Toledo Blade*
Carolina wins series 4-2
Game over, series over in this case. Sebastian Aho scored, Paul Stastny added the game winner, and the Carolina Hurricanes defeated the New York Islanders 2-1 in overtime on Friday night on Long Island.
The win clinches a spot in the second round for the Hurricanes, knocking out the top wild card team in the eastern conference in the Islanders. 4 different players had a point in the win for the Hurricanes, who get some extra rest ahead of round two.
Cal Clutterbuck started the scoring, giving the Islanders a 1-0 lead with his first goal of the playoffs, coming 9:21 into the game. Casey Cizikas and Ryan Pulock assisted. No goals were scored again until 9:24 into the 3rd period. There, Aho found the back of the net for the Hurricanes, tying the game with an assist from Brett Pesce.
That eventually led to overtime. Once the extra period began, it was time for the Hurricanes to win it. Stastny did the honors with his 3rd goal of the playoffs, giving the Hurricanes the series win with the lone assist going to Derek Stepan.
Stastny said of his goal that "Once Steps kept it in I knew Steps would get it to me. I tried to attack. I was thinking I’d have 2-on-1. Once Jesse started coming towards me instead of staying wide, then I figured I'm just going to shoot it without looking. Done it in practice before. Just the element of surprise. Get lucky some times, and was fortunate to go in."
Getting the start for the Hurricanes was Frederik Andersen, inserted to give Antti Raanta a break. Andersen played well, making 33 saves on 34 shots from the Islanders, good for a stellar .971 save percentage on the night.
Andersen said of his start that "They came in pretty hard in the first so I had a chance to get into it. Just tried not to get too far ahead of myself. Tried to enjoy the moment and take it a shot at a time. It was fun. For me it was a while since I played in the playoffs and it was something I was very excited about."
It was Ilya Sorokin who started for the Islanders, getting the loss despite a strong performance. Sorokin stopped 39 out of the 41 shots on goal that the Hurricanes had, recording a .951 save percentage as the Islanders season ended.
New York center and star forward Mathew Barzal said that "Sometimes when you’re just trying to hold on, it doesn’t work well. I think the first two periods we were playing aggressive and the third period we just kind of sat back and clog it up and make it hard. Sometimes when you do that, it can go the other way."
Up next, the Hurricanes will face the winner of the series between the New Jersey Devils and New York Rangers in the second round. The Islanders head into the offseason and look ahead to next year.
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