RALEIGH, N.C. — Rod Brind’Amour had simply watched his Carolina Hurricanes skate by means of a debacle of a primary interval, placing them in a three-goal gap on an evening they’d an opportunity to advance within the Stanley Cup Playoffs on house ice.
So what was he hoping to see within the second interval?
“Something,” he mentioned matter-of-factly.
He received it and extra, all through to Sebastian Aho’s ticket-punching objective that lastly buried the New Jersey Devils.
Aho hammered a one-timer previous Jacob Markstrom at 4:17 of the second extra 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 sport that pushed them into the second spherical.
“Unreal,” Aho mentioned. “Clearly you nearly like black out for a second there. The gang goes nuts, guys are leaping on you and it’s unreal. Yeah, actually good feeling.”
Carolina is the primary crew 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 crew 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 targets in a chaos-filled second interval to stage the sport.
However issues settled down into a tricky grinding end for the third interval and further durations, capped in the end by Aho’s second objective on the ability play on the night time.
Aho additionally had the objective 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 certainly one of 4 groups within the playoffs for a minimum of seven straight years. However the Hurricanes are the one certainly one of that group to win a minimum of one postseason collection every time.
“Happy with the group for digging in,” Brind’Amour mentioned. “I believe it may’ve been simple to go, ’Nicely, it’s 3-nothing, we’ve received two extra video games we may play (to advance). However they didn’t.”
“That’s simply not the best way we’re,” mentioned the 21-year-old Blake, who squeezed one shot between the left submit and Markstrom’s proper shoulder for his first profession playoff objective. “I believe it’s actually cool the best way we received tonight, so it was superior.”
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 objective in Raleigh. The opposite got here within the second spherical in 2023.
The Hurricanes had received the primary two video games of this collection at house, whereas the Devils punched by means of 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 harm on a skating-in hit by Timo Meier.
The injury-riddled Devils gave Carolina suits on its house ice in Recreation 2 and once more in Recreation 5, solely to come back up empty
“We performed two fairly good highway video games in Video games 2 and 5 right here, so to not get one is hard,” first-year Devils coach Sheldon Keefe mentioned. “However I believed our guys gave every little thing they’d. We had been on fumes in extra time. However our guys simply saved preventing, hanging on, Marky’s battling. So there’s heaps to love about it.”
Mercer, Timo Meier and Stefan Noesen scored throughout New Jersey’s game-opening flurry, then Nico Hischier added a second-period objective 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 extra time as Carolina put shot after shot on the web with an opportunity to advance using on each — together with Carolina’s Seth Jarvis ringing the left submit with about 4 1/2 minutes left within the first OT.
Carolina completed with a 34-12 edge in pictures after the second interval to place Markstrom underneath fixed duress. He made 37 consecutive saves between Aho’s tying and profitable targets, 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 extra time, man, we had been underneath siege,” Keefe mentioned. “And he was excellent and gave us an opportunity to maintain preventing.”
Pyotr Kochetkov completed with 31 saves in his first begin of the postseason for Carolina.
