- Analysis
- I'm laying the puck line with the Carolina Hurricanes over the New York Islanders, and this series was won in Game 2. The last thing the Islanders needed was for Carolina to win how it did, a back-breaking game for sure. I don't see the Islanders recovering from that, even at home.
Carolina earned a 5-3 win over New York at PNC Arena on Monday, scoring five unanswered goals to overcome a 3-0, second-period deficit. Seth Jarvis posted the first three-point game of his NHL/Hurricanes playoff career (1 goal, 2 assists), while Sebastian Aho (1 goal, 1 assist), Jake Guentzel (1 goal, 1 assist) and Andrei Svechnikov (2 assists) each added two points. Aho (57:45) and Jordan Martinook (57:54) scored the fastest two goals in franchise playoff history to give Carolina the lead. And that's when the series was won.
Carolina is 5-0-0 at UBS Arena, and is 11-3-1 in the teams’ last 15 regular-season matchups dating back to 2019.
Let's be real, the Islanders were lucky to get into the postseason after winning 10 of their final 13 games of the regular season, six of the victories against non-playoff teams. Before that, however, they had lost six straight, with three of the losses to non-playoff teams and another to these same Hurricanes, 4-1, in this arena.
Since Dec. 27, there really hasn't been any team better than the Hurricanes. They tied for No. 1 with 73 points, ranked sixth with 3.48 goals per game, and were tops in the NHL in allowing just 2.15 goals in that span.
On a roll against the deflated Isles, I'll lay the puck line here.
