In Raleigh Jesper Fast scored with five minutes gone in extra time on Wednesday to give the Hurricanes a 4-3 win over the New York Islanders.
The win gives the Canes a 2-0 series lead in their first round set with the Isles.
“[Brent Burns] made a great play to ‘Jordo’ to the far side,” Fast said. “I just tried to drive the back post. Great feeling. I was aiming far side. It felt like it was a pretty good shot.”
Antti Raanta made 3 saves for the win.
“As a goalie, you let those goals in, especially now after the game, you can look at those and think where you can do better,” Raanta said. “The win is the only thing that matters. They guys played great in front of me.”
Carolina had broken out to a 2-0 lead in the game before the Islanders scored three straight for a 3-2 lead in the third period.
“They’re a good team,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “They had us on the ropes. My guys came back and said, ‘Enough,’ and they gave it back. It wasn’t a pretty game by us. New York was good. Certainly in spurts we were OK.”
Jaccob Slavin scored in the the 13th minute of the third period to tie the game for the Canes, 3-3.
“Honestly, I was looking for the pass the whole time,” Slavin said, “then [at the] last second, I saw his head and put it in the vicinity and ended up getting a lucky bounce.”
Slavin was below the blue line to th4 left of the cage and bounced the puck off the Isles netminder for the score.
Paul Stastny scored in the first period to give the Canes a 1-0 lead.
Stefan Noesen p hit off the power play at 7:19 of the middle frame for a 2-0 advantage to the Canes.
Game 3 will be in Elmont on Friday.
The Isles started their rally midway through the second period on a goal from Kyle Palmieri.
“I thought we made more plays tonight,” New York coach Lane Lambert said. “I thought it was a good hockey game. It was a hard-fought hockey game by two good teams. A game where we were physical and we continued to hit and we continued to invest, so that’s what we have to do. We just have to be ready for the next one.”
New York tied the game, 2-2, with 21 seconds left in the middle frame when Mathew Barzal, scored after a steal.
“Two fluky goals that usually don’t go in,” New York forward Zach Parise said. “We played well enough to win, and we’ll move forward and do our best to grab the third one.
“You look at the good things. We were in the driver’s seat. We were in a good position to win the game. It didn’t happen, but I think if you look at the game as a whole we’ll leave there saying to ourselves that there’s a lot of really good things that we did and just a couple fluky goals. That’s the difference.”
The Islanders took a 3-2 lead just ahead of the midway mark of the third period on a marker from Brock Nelson.
Ilya Sorokin made 32 saves in the Game 2 loss.
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