In Brooklyn, the Carolina Hurricanes showed off the same calm confidence they exhibited in the their opening round series with the Washington Capitals.
On Friday night, the Canes got a goal from Jordan Staal at 4:04 of overtime to hand the New York Islanders their first loss of the post season, 1-0.
“It went off the wall and popped out to me,” Staal said. “I don’t know even how the puck got to my stick. We just need to be comfortable playing in games like this, 0-0, 1-1, and we’ll continue to do what we’re doing and find ways to win.”
Nino Niederreiter sent on a shot toward the Isles’ net that caromed off the end boards to a waiting Staal who flipped home the winner.
Petr Mrazek made 31 saves for the win.
“This is the night where you think maybe one lucky bounce or bad bounce off the skate would go in,” Mrazek said. “You just have to be focused on those games and see what happens.”
This was the third straight game for Staal to have scored.
“I’m just trying to get goals and trying to win games,” Staal said. “Not really sure (where the scoring is coming from), but I can’t complain. We came into this game feeling good about ourselves and knowing our game is rising and we needed to keep at it and stay with it and hopefully things would go our way.”
Game 2 of the series is Sunday in Brooklyn.
“The biggest thing is we’ve got to focus on the bigger picture here,” Islanders forward Anders Lee said. “Learn from what we did tonight, go back, regroup. We’ve got a big one in a couple of days that we’ve got to take advantage of.”
For Mrazek, it was his second shutout of the post season.
Both teams were scoreless in four power play chances.
“We’ve got to look at the whole thing here; we can’t get hung up on this one game,” Lee said. “We’ve got to rebound and stay resilient. It’s the first game we’ve lost these playoffs. It’s just tough to drop the first one at home, and that stinks.”
Robin Lehner made 31 saves in the loss.
“Small margins. Obviously, you don’t want to lose,” Lehner said. “You know, we’re not going to win every game. We’ve just got to bounce back. It’s a big game here on Sunday.”
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