Carolina scored the game’s first goal, but Montreal responded with four first-period goals. Montreal leads the best-of-seven series 1-0.
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Rapid Reaction: Hurricanes get wakeup call in 6-2 loss to Canadiens
By Brian Murphy, WRAL News
RALEIGH — The Carolina Hurricanes had a bad night at the worst possible time — and now they’re behind once again in an Eastern Conference Final.
The Hurricanes, playing for the first time in 12 days, lost their first game of the postseason and home-ice advantage the best-of-seven series with a 6-2 loss to Montreal on Thursday night at Lenovo Center in Raleigh.
Montreal scored four times in the first 12 minutes of the game.
“I didn’t think we were very sharp to put it bluntly,” Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “Our top guys had tough nights. That’s not going to work this time of year.”
Carolina’s vaunted defense, which suffocated Ottawa and Philadelphia and held them to five goals each in four-game sweeps, broke down repeatedly. Montreal’s skill and speed played a role, too. It led to a handful of breakaway chances for the Canadiens. Frederik Anderson, the top goalie through two postseason rounds, allowed five goals before Montreal added an empty netter.
No one had it worse for Carolina than star defenseman Jaccob Slavin. He was on the ice for four of the Canadiens’ goals and ended the night minus-4 for the game – the worst postseason plus-minus of his career.
“Personally, I think I handed them the game, so I’ve got to be better,” said Slavin, in his 11th season with the Hurricanes.
Said Brind’Amour: “He had a tough one. I’ve never seen that. Eight years. It happens.”
Slavin was far from alone. Defenseman Jalen Chatfield, Slavin’s partner, was minus-3. So, too, were Logan Stankoven and Jackson Blake, Carolina’s offensive stars through its 8-0 postseason start.
The Hurricanes top line of Seth Jarvis, Sebastian Aho and Andrei Svechnikov scored the game’s first goal just 33 seconds in, electrifying the crowd that’s waited nearly two weeks. But the line, plus Slavin and Chatfield, was on the ice when Montreal scored just 27 seconds later.
“That’s not good enough by us, by our line to get one and give it up right away,” said Jarvis, who scored the first goal.
It was all Canadiens from there in the first period. Cole Caufield, who had 51 goals in the regular season, notched his fifth of the playoffs to tie the score at 1.
The Canadiens made it 2-1 on a breakaway goal by Phillip Danault, then Alexandre Texier added a third goal with 11:49 left in the period and Ivan Demidov tacked on another 8:28 left with when he took a pass just inside the blue line and snapped a wrist shot past Andersen.
“You can’t give a team like that — any team really, but a team with that much offensive skill — that many chances and expect not to get burned,” Jarvis said.
Jugar Slafkovsky finished with two goals, including an empty netter, and one assist. Caufield and Danault each had a goal and an assist. Nick Suzuki finished with three assists.
“We were very opportunistic on our chances,” Montreal coach Martin St. Louis said.
Montreal defeated Buffalo in Game 7 of their series Monday night. The Canadiens have won two Game 7s in these playoffs and improved to 7-2 on the road.
Carolina entered the series 8-0 in the playoffs after consecutive sweeps of Ottawa and Philadelphia. But the Eastern Conference Final has been a nightmare for the franchise — even before Thursday night.
The Hurricanes are now 1-17 in five ECF appearances since 2009, including 1-13 since 2019 under coach Rod Brind’Amour and with much of the team’s current core. Carolina is 0-7 in Game 1s in the Eastern Conference Final, a mark that includes losses in 2002 and 2006 when the team recovered to win the series and reach the Stanley Cup Final.
It is just the fourth time in NHL history that a team has had at least 10 days off between series. All three of the teams with that much rest lost their next series.
“We weren’t ready,” Brind’Amour said. “We weren’t mentally ready to play. Everything was a little off.”
He continued: “It’s a tough night. We don’t have a lot of those. We’re going to have to bounce back. I have all the faith in the world that we will.”
Several Carolina Hurricanes players have recently become dads, including K’Andre Miller and Sean Walker.
The Hurricanes host the Montreal Canadiens to open their best-of-seven series Thursday night, the third time in four seasons they’ve reached the league semifinals.
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