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The Carolina Hurricanes are heading home with a 3-1 series lead, following a 5-2 win over the New York Islanders in Game 4 today.
The one lineup change came with Mackenzie MacEachern coming into action for his first game as a Hurricane, and Derek Stepan exiting the lineup.
Despite the Islanders generating the first few shots of the game, the Hurricanes managed to strike first on a 5-on-3, with Seth Jarvis knocking in a loose puck to put Carolina ahead. While the Hurricanes did take some penalties themselves after that, they got through the frame ahead.
Then early in the second period, Carolina capitalized on another power play, with Martin Necas taking a cross-crease pass from Stefan Noesen to beat Ilya Sorokin. The Hurricanes continued building on the lead later, with Sebastian Aho converting on an odd-man rush in the back half of the frame, to make it a 3-0 game.
Jarvis then ended up scoring his second goal on a breakaway only a minute into the third period, basically locking up the game with most of the period to go. While Adam Pelech did get the Islanders on the board soon after and New York ended up building a bit of momentum, Antti Raanta was good enough to make sure there was no chance of a comeback. The teams traded late goals from there, but the Hurricanes cruised to the 5-2 win.
It’s a big bounce-back game coming off a tough loss, with the Hurricanes putting themselves in a spot to end the series on home ice.
The power play success was an obvious story, with Carolina once again scoring multiple goals on the man advantage to build their lead. For a team who struggled on the power play this season, the Hurricanes have gone 5-for-19 over the four playoff games.
MacEachern also fit in pretty seamlessly. He got the puck over to Sebastian Aho on the third goal, then scored himself in the third period, and I don’t think there’s any hesitation in using him going forward.
Antti Raanta continues to be rock solid for Carolina as well. While he didn’t have a ton of high-danger saves, he did come up big after the Islanders scored their first goal, to make sure they couldn’t start to climb back into the game.
Jack Drury was injured early after taking a hard hit in the first period though, and did not return. It’s impressive to see the Hurricanes overcoming adversity with players unavailable, but the injuries are just continuing to pile up.
Regardless, they capitalized on their chances today and are now a game away from advancing to the second round once again.
The Hurricanes will host the Islanders for Game 5 on Tuesday.
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