They had to dig deep, but the Carolina Hurricanes got the job done in Newark on Sunday.
After an effort that head coach Rod Brind’Amour found lackluster in a double overtime Game 3 loss, the Carolina Hurricanes returned to form on Sunday in Game 4 against the New Jersey Devils.
An Andrei Svechnikov hat trick and a strong all-around team game led the Hurricanes to a 5-2 victory and a commanding 3-1 lead in the first round series.
The first shift of the game went New Jersey’s way, but after that it was all Carolina for a while.
Andrei Svechnikov finally broke through against Jacob Markstrom with a well-placed writer to make it 1-0.
Shortly thereafter, Jaccob Slavin made one of the plays of the year when he batted down a clearing attempt by former teammate Stefan Noesen, danced around him, and beat Markstrom from a difficult angle to push the visiting team’s edge to two.
“We had a little bit of O-Zone time there,” Slavin said. “I knew they were tired… I just tried to have a good gap and ended up knocking it out of the air… I just tried to throw it at the net and got lucky.”
While the veteran defenseman undersold it, his teammates did not.
“There’s probably 100,000 words I could say about that guy, he’s so good,” Jackson Blake said. “It goes under the radar sometimes, I would say his offense, too, the plays he creates, not a lot of defensemen in the NHL can do that.”
New Jersey took a penalty with about 30 seconds left in the first, and a 2-0 lead quickly grew to 3-0 early in the second when Svechnikov deflected one home off a feed from Seth Jarvis for Carolina’s third power play goal in the last two games.
Devils captain Nico Hischier answered with his third of the series to make it 3-1, but Carolina still had the game under control.
That was until Timo Meier barreled into Frederik Andersen, knocking the Carolina net minder into the net and out of the game with an injury.
The play was reviewed for a penalty, but the referees determined it did not meet the standard for a major, which was the only call they could make on review since they did not call a minor as the play happened.
Pyotr Kochetkov came in, and he quickly surrendered a 3-2 goal to Meier, who turned and fired from a bad angle on the wall.
The Devils had all the momentum heading into third, but they struggled in the final frame to make Kochetkov come up with tough saves, as the Russian turned aside every subsequent shot he faced.
“We know that about him,” Brind’Amour said. “He’s got a great ability to just kind of move on and get right back to it. Obviously he played great after that. We didn’t give up a ton which was key, but when we did, he made a couple of good saves.”
The Hurricanes got a gift late in the third when Markstrom erroneously went out to play a puck, ultimately turning it back over to the Hurricanes.
The Swedish netminder then dropped a shot that was in his glove, and Jordan Martinook shoved the rebound home.
The Devils then pulled Markstrom for the extra attacker, and Svechnikov found the twine off a feed from Blake for a hat trick and a 5-2 lead.
“It’s unbelievable,” Blake said. “He’s been bringing it every night in the playoffs… on the empty netter, I had to look for him. I‘m happy he had that night, and it’s good for his confidence.”
The two teams will now travel back to Raleigh for Game 4 at the Lenovo Center on Tuesday night, which is set for a 7:30 PM puck drop.