The Carolina Hurricanes are beginning to sound repetitive.
The visiting Hurricanes won their second straight overtime game against the Montreal Canadiens on Monday evening, this time on a goal by Andrei Svechnikov at 14:06 that gave them a 3-2 win in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals.
The Hurricanes lead best-of-7 series 2-1 heading to Game 4 on Wednesday in Montreal.
Carolina also won 3-2 on Saturday on an overtime goal by Nikolaj Ehlers.
Svechnikov took a wrist shot from above the right faceoff circle that went off goalie Jakub Dobes and into the corner of the net. The goal was initially awarded to Sebastian Aho on a deflection from in front of the crease, but later was awarded to Svechnikov.
“In the room, we don’t care who gets it done,” Aho said. “We just go in wave after wave.”
Shayne Gostisbehere and Taylor Hall also scored for Carolina while Frederik Andersen needed to make just 11 saves, one more than he had in the previous game. The Hurricanes, who lost 6-2 in Game 1 of the series, are now 10-1 in the postseason.
“There’s two really good teams going at it right now,” Aho said. “Just stick with the process and play our game and trust that it’ll give us the result we want at the end. That’s been the case the last two games, and just keep on going.”
Mike Matheson and Lane Hutson scored for Montreal, which has lost two in a row for the first time in 17 games during the current postseason. Dobes made 35 saves and contributed an assist.
“You need everything working against a team like that,” Montreal coach Martin St. Louis said of Carolina. “At this stage, you’ve got to put it all together. Execution is part of that, jam is part of that. It’s not one thing, you’ve got to put it all together and I know we can.”
Carolina took a 1-0 lead at 8:24 of the first period.
The puck came out of the corner in the Montreal zone to Carolina forward Mark Jankowski, who took a shot from the bottom of the right faceoff circle that deflected off the stick blade of Canadiens forward Kirby Dach. The puck went to Gostisbehere as he skated through the left circle, and he scored with a one-timer.
Montreal tied it 1-1 at 15:28 of the opening period.
This time the Canadiens won a battle for the puck behind the Carolina net. Ivan Demidov passed it out front to Matheson, who scored over Andersen’s glove with a wrist shot from above the right hashmarks.
The Hurricanes quickly retook the lead after Dobes made back-to-back saves from in close on Hall, but he scored on the third try to give Carolina a 2-1 lead at 16:22 of the first.
Montreal went on its second power play at 4:18 of the second period.
Cole Caufield passed the puck to Hutson as they crossed the Carolina blue line, got it back and then fed Hutson again just above the crease. Hutson redirected the puck into the net to tie it 2-2 at 4:43.
Noah Dobson appeared to score at 8:27 of the third period for the Canadiens, but the Hurricanes successfully challenged that Caufield was offside entering the zone 29 seconds before the puck went into the net.
“I feel like at times we’re playing too slow and sometimes we play at the right pace but we don’t execute,” St. Louis said. “We didn’t expect this to be easy, and we’re OK with that.”
–Field Level Media
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