The Carolina Hurricanes defeated the Montréal Canadiens 4-3 on Tuesday, March 7 at Centre Bell in Montréal, Quebec.
After falling behind 2-0 in the first period, the Canes (42-12-8) worked their way back into it, tying it up late in the third and eventually beating the Canadiens (26-33-5) in a shootout.
The Hurricanes came out sluggish in the first period, allowing two goals, but showed life late in the frame. The first goal of the game came on a turnover at the blue line, where Montreal right wing Alex Belzile put a rebound past Canes goaltender Antti Raanta with 9:43 left in the first period.
Left wing Mike Hoffman scored the Canadiens’ second goal, but Carolina responded quickly. Canes right wing Derek Stepan took advantage of the space given to him and zipped a pass to defenseman Jaccob Slavin, whose slick shot passed Montreal netminder Jake Allen. The goal marked Slavin’s fifth point in the last five games.
Frederik Andersen took over in net for the Canes at the start of the second period in place of Raanta, who appeared to be in some pain after taking a tumble on a Montreal scoring chance. The Canes had a much better start to the second period as defenseman Brett Pesce sent a beautiful pass to fellow defenseman Brady Skjei to tie things up at two apiece. Just moments later, the Canadiens regained the lead with a tip-in goal from left wing Michael Pezzetta.
Momentum swung back and forth between the two teams during the second period. Carolina was able to tilt the ice back in its favor toward the second half of the period but still trailed 3-2 after 40 minutes.
The third period opened up offensively on both ends of the ice. Center Paul Stastny nearly scored his ninth goal of the year, but Stepan’s hard work led to what was called goaltender interference.
After the overturned goal, the Canes put together some strong shifts and made a late push to tie the game, and their vigorous forecheck contributed to right wing Jesper Fast’s eighth goal of the season. Carolina’s bottom six generated chances all evening and was finally rewarded late in the third — after 60 minutes, it was 3-3.
Carolina then headed into their league-leading 19th overtime of the season. The 3-on-3 play generated multiple highlights for Allen as the Canes had multiple chances to put the game away. The most crucial sequence of overtime came in the final moments, when Canes center Jordan Staal managed to single-handedly stop a 3-on-1 breakout, and the game would go on to a shootout.
It was a storybook ending in Montreal as the shootout went to a total of six rounds. The most crucial round was the third, in which Carolina needed both a save from Andersen and a goal from left wing Teuvo Teravainen, and they got both.
Andersen stopped Montreal left wing Jonathan Drouin’s shootout attempt, and Teravainen made a disgusting backhand-forehand deke to beat Allen on the blocker side. To close out the game, center Jesperi Kotkaniemi sent a slapshot blazing past Allen’s blocker to beat his former team and continue his impressive second half of the season.
With the division foe New Jersey Devils losing 4-3 to the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Hurricanes currently hold a four-point lead in the Metropolitan division with a game in hand.
The Hurricanes are next set to take on the Philadelphia Flyers Thursday, March 9 at 7 p.m. inside PNC Arena.
