The Carolina Hurricanes pulled off a game seven victory to clinch the series win against the Boston Bruins at PNC Arena on Saturday, May 14. The win marked Carolina’s sixth game seven win since relocating to Raleigh in 1997.
Among the stars of Saturday’s performance, goaltender Antti Raanta and center Max Domi drove the team to victory thanks to a combination of strong defense and powerful offense.
“Obviously, I was pretty lucky to come to a team like this,” Domi said. “We knew it was going to be a tight game tonight. Both teams had a lot on the line.”
Funnily enough, there were two instances of 4v4 play across the first period: Boston center Craig Smith and Canes center Vincent Trocheck were involved in a scuffle almost five minutes into the game, and defenseman Brett Pesce was sent to the box for high sticking immediately after Boston defenseman Connor Clifton tripped Canes right-wing Andrei Svechnikov.
Neither play reaped a goal for the Hurricanes or the Bruins, but Carolina nabbed the first power play of the game — Boston defenseman Derek Forbort was sent to the penalty box for holding against Canes center Jesperi Kotkaniemi. Unfortunately, the two minutes of play went ultimately scoreless, but Carolina’s play boded well for future power plays.
PNC Arena exploded after left-wing Teuvo Teravainen tipped in a bullet from Domi for Carolina’s first goal, 18:36 into the game. Boston led in shots on goal across most of the first period, but the Hurricanes gained more traction in the last few minutes of the first inning.
If that first goal wasn’t sweet enough, Boston left-wing Taylor Hall was handed a double minor penalty for high sticking against Canes defenseman Tony DeAngelo with less than a minute to go in the first period.
Unfortunately, the Hurricanes weren’t able to rope in another goal throughout the four-minute power play, but they didn’t wait long to raise the lead to 2-0. Domi looped his stick around the goal to knock in a sneaky goal against Boston goaltender Jeremy Swayman, giving the Canes a little extra wiggle room early in the second period.
The Bruins halved their deficit a mere minute and a half after Domi’s goal, however. Boston left-wing Jake DeBrusk nailed a goal right past Raanta, who was slow to react to DeBrusk’s puck.
That being said, Carolina soon raised its lead to 3-1 thanks to yet another goal from Domi — pretty incredible, considering he hadn’t scored a playoff goal in his career before this game. One goal away from a playoff hat trick, Domi was one of the more dominant players on the ice for game seven.
Although the first 14 minutes or so of the third period remained fairly uneventful between both teams, Boston received its first power play of the game with about six and a half minutes of gameplay left. Defenseman Brendan Smith sent the puck clear into the crowd, accidentally giving the Bruins two minutes of a one-man advantage.
Boston had several good shots on goal against Raanta, but luckily Carolina returned to full strength without an advance from the Bruins. From there on, it was a tense battle between the two East Coast teams. Center and captain Jordan Staal almost made it a 4-1 lead on a tight wraparound goal against Swayman, but the refs ultimately ruled the play as no goal.
With about two and a half minutes left of gameplay, Boston emptied its net to give the Bruins an additional attacker in an attempt to even out the score. Boston right-wing David Pastrnak scored with 20 seconds left in regulation, mostly thanks to defenseman Brady Skjei’s momentary absence from the ice due to a broken stick.
In what was possibly the most stressful 20 seconds of the series, attacker after attacker hurled shots at Raanta in attempts to tie the game and force overtime for game seven. Luckily for Canes fans, Raanta and defenseman Jaccob Slavin made some incredible saves against Boston’s offense to cement Carolina’s victory.
“It’s obviously a big one, for sure,” Raanta said. “When Freddie [Andersen] got hurt, it was […] a chance for me to show what I could do in the big stages. Starting from game one, I think my game was pretty good. Obviously today, there was lots of battling and working it out.”
The Hurricanes will now face either the Pittsburgh Penguins or New York Rangers in the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs based on the results of tomorrow’s game.
