Raleigh – Trailing 0-2 headed to the third period, the Hurricanes scored three straight goals to take a 3-2 lead on the Vegas Golden Knights on Thursday night.Mark Stone scored with 81 seconds left in regulation to force overtime.
In the extra session, Seth Jarvis hit off the power play at 3:56 to give the Hurricanes the win, and a series tie at 1-1 headed to Las Vegas for Games 3 and 4.
“This is exciting,” Jarvis said. “This is what playoff hockey is all about; tight games and momentum swings and you never really know what’s going to happen next. I don’t think you can ask any more of a playoff series.”
Frederik Andersen made 23 saves to get the win.
“Somebody had to step up,” Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “Somebody had to make a play. And that’s what happened. ‘Stanks’ makes a play and all of a sudden you get the building going again, and then somebody else makes a play.”
Brent Howden scored single markers i the first and second periods to give the Golden Knights a 2-0 lead going into the third period.
Carolina started their rally just past the midway point of the final frame.
Logan Stankoven started the rally after stealing the puck from Vegas and scoring of a wraparound.
“I think it was just great to get the crowd back into it,” Stankoven said. “When you’re down and out, I think you just have to rely on hard work and being able to hound pucks. I just tried to hop off the draw there and take it to the net. Kind of got a bit lucky, it ramped up his stick. I saw it go in and I was pretty excited.”
Mark Jankowski tied the game, 2-2, on a wrist shot from the left circle.
Jordan Staal scored a rare Carolina power play at 15:25 off a deflection.
“Our group, this playoffs especially, has just been holding the rope, like we’ve been talking about,” Staal said. “Just staying with it, just staying with it, and just being patient with our game and trusting our game. I think we’ve done a great job of that.”
The two teams now head to Las Vegas for Game 3 and 4.
“We’re fine,” Vegas defenseman Noah Hanifin said. “We have a positive group in here. We did a lot of good things tonight. We need to improve on some of those mistakes, but we’re all good. We’re excited to go back to Vegas and take control of the series again.”
