The Carolina Hurricanes swore they’d be fine after losing a two-game lead and momentum in their first-round playoff series. It was just a matter of cutting down on mistakes and staying out of the penalty box.
The Hurricanes did exactly that Tuesday night, and it has them within a win of advancing to the next round.
Rookie Seth Jarvis scored twice and Antti Raanta finished with 34 saves to help the Hurricanes beat the Boston Bruins 5-1 on Tuesday night for a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven series.
With the Game 5 win, the Hurricanes have two chances to close out the Bruins. Game 6 is Thursday in Boston, and Game 7, if needed, on home ice Saturday.
The series has yet to see a team secure a road win. It wasn't close to happening in this one, either. Carolina shook off mistake-filled showings in Boston that sent a parade of Hurricanes to the penalty box and carried the action in a cleaner performance.
“We know how we've got to play,” said defenseman Tony DeAngelo, who had a first-period goal.
“Penalties got us out of our game last game. ... When we're on our game 5 on 5, we're very confident that we're going to come out on top.”
To DeAngelo's point, the Hurricanes have outscored the Bruins 12-6 during 5-on-5 play through five games. This time, they committed just three penalties on a night with far fewer scuffles and post-whistle antics by both teams.
Defensemen Jaccob Slavin added a first period goal for Carolina, while Vincent Trocheck added an empty-netter. When it was over, Carolina had five goals for the third time in as many series games in front of their loud, rowdy crowd.
Raanta was sharp all night, highlighted by stopping a left-alone Brad Marchand at the top of the crease by getting his left wrist on the puck in the first period. He carried a shutout until midway through the third.
“It's all about just going out there and battling,” Raanta said, adding: “The whole team played great in front of me. They made my job a lot easier.”
Boston's Connor Clifton scored on a rush to make it 4-1, while Jeremy Swayman finished with 33 saves. But after scoring twice on the power play in each of the past two games, Boston came up empty on its only three chances — and twice committed penalties to negate its man advantage.
Boston knocked Carolina out of the playoffs twice in the past three postseasons, first with a four-game sweep in the 2019 Eastern Conference finals and then a five-game, first-round series in the Toronto bubble a year later. Now, it's the Bruins who are facing elimination.
“Obviously it's a do-or-die situation,” Marchand said. "It's not the one we want to be in. But all that matters is that we regroup and get prepared for the next one.
“We know they're going to push. They're a good team. You can see they're very hungry right now.”
BANGED-UP JARVIS
Jarvis had a tough Game 4 when he took a puck to the groin on a slap shot by teammate Brendan Smith. He laughed it off earlier Tuesday, even while saying he was still in pain from it.
No matter, Jarvis was willing to tussle at the crease on both of his goals.
The first came when he was knocked to the ice on the left side by Brandon Carlo, but whipped his stick around to hit the puck — which bounced off the right skate of Boston’s Jake DeBrusk and fluttered over Swayman for a 3-0 lead at 15:52 of the second.
He came through with another early in the third, reaching around Swayman to corral a puck that had slipped underneath the netminder and tapping it in at 3:31 of the third.
Any worries about getting hit again?
“I don't care, if I get hit again, I get hit again,” Jarvis said, added: “I say that now, but if I get hit again, I might be down even longer.”
MCAVOY IN
Boston had a surprise addition with defenseman Charlie McAvoy.
McAvoy was a late scratch for Sunday’s Game 4 due to COVID-19 protocols and coach Bruce Cassidy said earlier Tuesday he'd miss Game 5 as well. But McAvoy traveled from Boston in the afternoon and was spotted entering PNC Arena, then joined his team for warmups as the Bruins tweeted McAvoy had cleared the protocol.
McAvoy saw more than 25 minutes of ice time.
LINDHOLM OUT
Boston defenseman Hampus Lindholm missed his third straight game. He hasn't played since being leveled on a jarring shoulder-to-chest hit from Carolina’s Andrei Svechnikov in the Game 2 loss. Cassidy said Lindholm didn’t travel to North Carolina for Game 5.
THREE-POINT NIGHTS
DeAngelo, who had three assists in Game 2, had another three-point game with two assists. Trocheck also had two assists, while Teuvo Teravainen had three assists.
