Jaccob Slavin worked overtime, Frederik Andersen returned from injury and 13 saves, while Carolina Hurricanes outperformed the Washington Capitals 2-1 in Game 1 of the second round of playoff series on Tuesday night.
Logan Stankoven began his comeback in goal midway through the spin after defeating Logan Thompson from a false pass from Washington teammate Alex Alex Alexiev’s right skate. After failing to score on the second half of the regulations’ power play, Slavin scored 3:06 to OT from inside the blue line, giving Carolina a series lead.
The results thwarted the dominant effort by the road team despite the fact that they tracked most of the game. Carolina finished 33 shots online, compared to just 14 in Washington. The six-man hurricane had at least three shots on the net, including Slabin, who finished with five.
“We were on top of it and we knew we had to throw everything into the net,” Slavin said. “That mentality was rewarded there in the end.”
Less tested Andersen only allowed Protas to have their early second-season goals in order to improve this postseason to 4-1. Andersen was knocked out of Game 4 and returned after suffering an obvious head injury after losing Game 5 in the first round against the New Jersey Devils.
“It’s just trying to take my path and be always there in that moment and stay in it,” Andersen said. “I don’t know when the next big save will happen.”
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Just a week ago, Andersen had to sit and watch as he defeated the Devils in Game 5 double overtime to secure the series. A week later he came back and offered goaltending like the quality goaltending he got from him every time Carolina got healthy.
“I’ve been looking forward to this for a while,” Andersen said. “I’m happy I can start with my right foot.”
Carolina is the only team to penalize this postseason, improving Washington’s power play twice from the board to 17/17. That was the difference in using Protas’ mistakes and Seth Jarvis’ scoring along with Thompson’s scoring, along with Kotkaniemi and Stankoven.
“I thought our guys played hard every shift. I loved how we played from the start of the game,” Carolina manager Rod Brindamour said. “Obviously we were down, but yeah, there’s a certain game plan, and I thought we were in it tonight.”
Game 2 is a Thursday night in Washington.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
