Canes top Bruins in Game 7, advance to Round 2

The Carolina Hurricanes are headed to the second spherical of the Stanley Cup Playoffs after defeating the visiting Boston Bruins 3-2 in Recreation 7 of their first-round collection on Saturday.

Max Domi, an in-season acquisition, scored twice and tallied three factors to steer the Hurricanes. Jake DeBrusk and David Pastrnak had objectives for Boston.

Carolina’s subsequent opponent would be the winner of Sunday’s Recreation 7 between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the New York Rangers.

House ice wound up being a significant component within the collection. For simply the ninth time in NHL playoff historical past, the host crew received every recreation. Boston hadn’t misplaced within the first spherical since 2016-17, reaching no less than the semifinals in three of the previous 4 seasons and making a Stanley Cup Ultimate look in 2018-19.

Carolina and Boston had additionally confronted one another in two of the previous three postseasons previous to this one, and it was the Bruins doing the eliminating each occasions (throughout the Japanese Convention finals in 2018-19 and within the second spherical of the NHL’s COVID-19 match of 2020-21). The Hurricanes’ third strive proved to be the attraction, the place they may lastly ship Boston to an early offseason as an alternative.

It was hardly a simple street, although. Carolina performed the whole collection with out beginning goaltender Frederik Andersen (lower-body harm) and in Recreation 2 Boston ahead David Pastrnak bumped into Andersen’s backup Antti Raanta and despatched him out with an upper-body ailment. Rookie Pyotr Kochetkov stepped in to make his NHL playoff debut and helped the Hurricanes to victory.

For Recreation 3, Boston made an important goaltending change from Linus Ullmark (.860 SV%, 4.16 GAA in Recreation 1 and Recreation 2) to rookie Jeremy Swayman and received the following two video games by a mixed rating of 9-4.

The Hurricanes stormed again for an emphatic Recreation 5 win (when Boston performed with out high defenseman Charlie McAvoy attributable to a COVID-19 analysis), solely to be snuffed out by the Bruins’ assault in Recreation 6 (for which McAvoy returned).

Neither Swayman nor Raanta had ever appeared in a Recreation 7 earlier than. And each netminders could be examined from the outset of a brisk first interval.

The Hurricanes and Bruins traded possibilities there till Teuvo Teravainen lastly buried a puck backdoor on Swayman within the final 90 seconds.

Trailing 1-0, Boston could not get out of the body earlier than Taylor Corridor was assessed a double-minor penalty for top sticking. The Bruins penalty kill got here via — and Swayman made a number of large stops — to get Corridor out of the field, solely to have Domi slither behind the Bruins’ protection and prolong Carolina’s result in 2-0.

It was the primary playoff objective of Domi’s profession but it surely would not be his final.

After DeBrusk let a puck fly previous Raanta to chop the Bruins’ deficit by one, Domi got here calling once more to make it 3-1 halfway via the second interval.

Boston was 1-13-0 this season when down by a number of objectives via two durations. That file wouldn’t enhance, whilst Pastrnak added one other objective with 20 seconds left in regulation.