The Carolina Hurricanes have shown imperfections, but they’re making magic

Game 3 wasn’t easy for the Carolina Hurricanes by any means, but the scoreboard still worked out in their favor. Suddenly, the Canes are just one win away from advancing to the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. 

It was the same story we’d seen before. The New York Islanders had their moments and kept things close, but the Hurricanes prevailed again.

“Thank god we scored we the first couple of goals, that helped us for sure,” said Andrei Svechnikov, who registered two assists. 

“If you go back in those first two games, you have to grind away to score goals, but we’ve had to ruin their neutral zone and try to make a play. It was successful tonight.”

After sitting on the bench as the backup for the past month, Ilya Sorokin got his first postseason start in Game 3. Sorokin wasn’t even in the home team’s locker room for the media availability. Still, his disappointment in himself was evident after he was pulled in the second period at the 7:14 mark. Sorokin allowed three goals against on 14 shots faced, and while you can’t blame him for all of it, those were goals he certainly would have liked to have back. 

“We win and we lose as a team, so I’m not gonna go there. But what I’m gonna say is, sometimes, we make changes as a coach because we feel we just want to change the momentum of the game,” Islanders coach Patrick Roy said.

On the flip side, what Frederik Andersen has been able to do for the Hurricanes has been nothing shy of remarkable. 

This was his first time playing three straight games since the 2023 playoffs, but it didn’t look that way. 

“I don’t get impressed by him anymore, he does it every night,” Jordan Martinook said. “I don’t think I’ve seen a goalie as calm as he is in the net. We could be under siege and he’s making save after save, but it just doesn’t look like he’s ever breathing heavy.”