In Raleigh, the New York Islanders had their Game 2 match with the Hurricanes in hand on Monday night.
They held a 3-0 lead in the middle frame.
“It’s a tough loss, no doubt about it, because we had a chance to win that game,” New York coach Patrick Roy said. “But at the same time, we’ve got to regroup and be ready for the next game. We’re going home and we need to play well at our building and win game No. 3, that’s all.”
Then they promptly blew it, all of it in a 5-3 loss to trail their best-of-seven series with Carolina by an 0-2 count heading home for Game 3 on Thursday in Elmont.
Five different skaters hit for the Hurricanes in the rally.
The Hurricanes’ Teuvo Teravainen scored at 13:01 of the second period to close the gap to 3-+1 headed to the third period.
He scored off a rebound on the power play.
The third period was a disaster for the Islanders.
Seth Jarvis scored at 10:43 of the third, scoring off a wrister from the left circle to trim the deficit to 3-2.
You could hear the air leaving the Islanders’ bench.
Sebastian Aho scored at 17:45, off a tip in to tie the game, 3-3. Aho’s goal came with Frederik Andersen on the bench for an extra skater.
“It was a special night, for sure,” Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “It’s one of those games we’ll look back on for a long time. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime type game.”
Just nine seconds later, Jordan Martinook put the Canes up, 4-3, off the power play.
“In the third, it was just wave after wave,” Martinook said. “We were coming at them and we didn’t give them anything, which was key.
“The momentum of us tying the game and the energy it sends, I don’t really know how to describe it. Obviously, you push that hard, hopefully you’re going to get a couple. Luckily we did. Those are fun games to be a part of, and I’m not going to sleep too good tonight I don’t think.”
Jake Guentzel hit an empty net with 56 seconds left on the game clock for the 5-3 final count on the scoreboard.
Andersen made nine saves in the win.
Kyle Palmieri got the Islanders’ offense going at 16:22 of the opening stanza for a 1-0 lead.
Bo Horvat pushed the advantage to 2-0 with 15 seconds left on the clock in the first.
In the second period, Anders Lee hit off a power play for a 3-0 lead to New York at 3:54.
“As a group, you support one another defensively, and there’s times we got hemmed in,” New York’s Brock Nelson said. “I thought guys laid it on the line a couple times when were were stuck because of broken sticks, which obviously hurts. You’d like to be playing more in the offensive zone, for sure.”
From there, it was all Carolina.
The Canes outshot the Islanders, 29-5, over the final two periods of the match.
“It gives you hope, it gives you a chance,” Brind’Amour said. “We went into the [third] period down two, so it wasn’t a total disaster of a period. Guys felt good about how they were playing.”
Semyon Varlamov made 34 saves in the loss.
The Islanders have to come a long way back form this loss. They have been outscored 6-0 in the third period of the first two games of the seri4s.
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