NEW YORK – The Carolina Hurricanes didn’t think they played their best in Game 3 against the New York Islanders. They did enough to move a win away from advancing to the second round.
Defensemen Brent Burns and Dmitry Orlov got the Hurricanes off to a fast start and they held on to beat the Islanders 3-2 for a 3-0 series lead.
Sebastian Aho also scored for the Hurricanes and Andrei Svechnikov had two assists. Frederik Andersen stopped 29 shots. Carolina won for eighth time in nine games at UBS Arena, which opened for the 2021-22 season.
“I thought it was a hard-fought game, there were not many chances on both sides,” Islanders coach Patrick Roy said. “We had a good push in the third. We had our chances and the puck wasn’t bouncing our way.”
Trailing 3-2 in the third period, New York pressed for the tying goal, outshooting Carolina 11-3, but couldn’t get the tying goal.
“We knew it was coming, they were going to give it everything they had,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. ‘That´s exactly what happened but obviously Freddy came up with a couple of huge saves and that´s the difference in the game.”
Andersen made a nice save falling backward on a shot by Alexander Romanov about 6 1/2 minutes in the third period. The puck lay in the paint briefly before the goalie covered it up.
Andersen made another stellar save while sitting on the ice, reaching up to grab a shot by Romanov with 5:48 left. Andersen felt he got clipped by an Islanders player and that’s why he went down on the play.
“One you go down you just try to steal one and see where the puck is,” he said. “You got to see it to have a chance for it to try to come up with something. Those are fun saves.”
Brind’Amour credited the goalie for always being even-keeled regardless of the situation.
“He was very, very sharp,” he said according to AP. “Obviously, the difference in the game. That’s kind of his demeanor. You can never really tell with him what kind of game it is.”
The Islanders pulled Varlamov for an extra skater with 1:55 to go, but could not beat Andersen.
“Both teams battled, sometimes you´re just a bounce away.” New York’s Kyle Palmieri said. “We just have to regroup and find a way in Game 4.”
Trailing 2-0 after one period, the Islanders got on the scoreboard early in the second when Engvall took a pass in front from Anders Lee and fired a shot between Andersen’s legs.
Aho restored the two-goal lead at 7:14 as he got a pass from Svechnikov and fired a shot from the high slot past Sorokin for his second goal of the series.
Nelson brought the Islanders back within one late in the middle period. Ryan Pulock’s shot was deflected off Palmieri in front and Nelson came in and quickly put it past Andersen on the right side with 2:21 to go.
The Islanders had a 15-9 advantage on shots in the first period, but trailed 2-0 after 20 minutes. New York’s shot total in the period exceeded their total in all of Game 2 when they managed only 12.
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