RALEIGH, N.C. — Rod Brind’Amour had simply watched his Carolina Hurricanes skate via a debacle of a primary interval, placing them in a three-goal gap on an evening that they had an opportunity to advance within the Stanley Cup Playoffs on dwelling ice.
So what was he hoping to see within the second interval?
“Anything,” he mentioned matter-of-factly.
He obtained it and extra, throughout to Sebastian Aho’s ticket-punching purpose that lastly buried the New Jersey Devils.
Aho hammered a one-timer previous Jacob Markstrom at 4:17 of the second additional time to assist the Hurricanes beat the Devils 5-4 on Tuesday night time to clinch their first-round playoff collection in 5 video games.
Aho’s rating off a feed from Shayne Gostisbehere got here with the Hurricanes on a four-minute energy play on a double-minor high-sticking penalty by Dawson Mercer that despatched Jesperi Kotkaniemi skating off to the tunnel with a towel to his proper eye.
Aho offered the capper, the one lead Carolina would have in a wild recreation that pushed them into the second spherical.
“Unreal,” Aho mentioned. “Obviously you almost like black out for a second there. The crowd goes nuts, guys are jumping on you and it’s unreal. Yeah, really good feeling.”
Carolina is the primary workforce to advance to the second spherical, and subsequent faces the winner of the Montreal-Washington collection. The Capitals lead 3-1 in that one.
The Hurricanes are additionally the fourth workforce in league historical past to win a collection in seven straight postseasons, first for the reason that Montreal Canadiens went 10 straight from 1984-93.
The Devils skated out to a 3-0 lead within the opening 10 minutes, solely to see Carolina erupt for 4 objectives in a chaos-filled second interval to degree the sport.
However issues settled down into a troublesome grinding end for the third interval and additional intervals, capped in the end by Aho’s second purpose on the facility play on the night time.
Aho additionally had the purpose that tied it 4-4 with 8:33 left within the second interval with the Hurricanes holding a two-man benefit.
Taylor Corridor, Jackson Blake and Andrei Svechnikov additionally scored for Carolina, which is one in every of 4 groups within the playoffs for not less than seven straight years. However the Hurricanes are the one one in every of that group to win not less than one postseason collection every time.
“Proud of the group for digging in,” Brind’Amour mentioned. “I think it could’ve been easy to go, ’Well, it’s 3-nothing, we’ve got two more games we could play (to advance). But they didn’t.”
“That’s just not the way we are,” mentioned the 21-year-old Blake, who squeezed one shot between the left put up and Markstrom’s proper shoulder for his first profession playoff purpose. “I think it’s really cool the way we won tonight, so it was awesome.”
It additionally marked the second time in three seasons that the Hurricanes had eradicated the Devils in a five-game collection that ended with a sudden-death purpose in Raleigh. The opposite got here within the second spherical in 2023.
The Hurricanes had gained the primary two video games of this collection at dwelling, whereas the Devils punched via in two overtimes to win Recreation 3. However Carolina put New Jersey on the brink with Sunday’s Recreation 4 win after taking a 3-0 lead and shedding beginning goalie Frederik Andersen to an damage on a skating-in hit by Timo Meier.
The injury-riddled Devils gave Carolina matches on its dwelling ice in Recreation 2 and once more in Recreation 5, solely to come back up empty
“We played two pretty good road games in Games 2 and 5 here, so to not get one is tough,” first-year Devils coach Sheldon Keefe mentioned. “But I thought our guys gave everything they had. We were on fumes in overtime. But our guys just kept fighting, hanging on, Marky’s battling. So there’s lots to like about it.”
Mercer, Timo Meier and Stefan Noesen scored throughout New Jersey’s game-opening flurry, then Nico Hischier added a second-period purpose for a 4-3 lead that offered a quick pause to Carolina’s avalanche.
Markstrom regrouped from that tough second interval to complete with 48 saves for the Devils, working as a one-man survival raft within the first additional time as Carolina put shot after shot on the web with an opportunity to advance driving on each — together with Carolina’s Seth Jarvis ringing the left put up with about 4 1/2 minutes left within the first OT.
Carolina completed with a 34-12 edge in photographs after the second interval to place Markstrom underneath fixed duress. He made 37 consecutive saves between Aho’s tying and successful objectives, the with the latter having him bang his stick to interrupt it towards the pipes after which the ice as Aho skated to the opposite finish amid a roaring celebration.
“That first overtime, man, we were under siege,” Keefe mentioned. “And he was outstanding and gave us a chance to keep fighting.”
Pyotr Kochetkov completed with 31 saves in his first begin of the postseason for Carolina.
