With the win, the Hurricanes are going to the Eastern Conference Finals
Andrei Svechnikov scored the game-winning goal and the Carolina Hurricanes defeated the regular season Eastern Conference Champion, Washington Capitals, 3-1, to move on to the Eastern Conference Finals.
The Canes won the series, 4-1, just as they did against the Devils in round one.
Fred Andersen remained super solid in net for Carolina. He made 17 saves on the 18 shots he faced in this game and remains the top performing goalie in the playoffs.
He now has a 1.36 GAA and a save percentage of .937.
Svechnikov has been hot all playoffs. He leads the team with 8 goals in the 10 playoff games he has played.
Seth Jarvis and Sebastian Aho each have 10 points, which lead the team.
After Captain Jordan Staal got on the scoreboard with a top corner shot about midway through the first period, the Caps tied it up when Jaccob Slavin tried to send a puck behind the net. The puck bounced out in front of Andersen instead and Anthony Beauvillier made no mistake.
The score remained tied until Svechnikov beat Logan Thompson with a tight angle shot with 1:59 left in the game.
Seth Jarvis scored into an empty net to tidy things up for Carolina.
Alexander Nikishin made his debut as he filled in for an injured Jalen Chatfield.
The rookie made some mistakes but also made some good plays. He played just over 10 minutes, was called for a penalty, was credited with one giveaway and one takeaway (against Ovechkin), had two shots on goal and two hits. Not too shabby for a high pressure situation in your first NHL game.
The Canes will face either the Maple Leafs or the Panthers who will play their game six tomorrow night. If the opponent is the Panthers, Carolina will have home ice advantage.
The Hurricanes are sporting an 8-2 record so far this postseason and have looked dominating at times.
This was supposed to be a bit of a rebuilding year as the Canes had to replace some important pieces on the blueline and elsewhere. We will talk more about that soon.
The team won 64% of their faceoffs and were credited with 46 hits.
Staal and Aho led the way with 7 hits each.
Team’s recap – https://x.com/Canes
Game Summary – https://www.nhl.com/scores/htmlreports/20242025/GS030225.HTM
Event Summary – https://www.nhl.com/scores/htmlreports/20242025/ES030225.HTM