After the game 4 win over Montreal with a 4-0 score, Carolina Captain Jordan Staal was quoted as saying that his team was “playing like a machine”.
Well, the machine kept on running without so much of a hiccup as they finished off the Eastern Conference Final series with a 6-1 win over the Montreal Canadiens on Friday night.
After dropping game one, they finished up with four straight wins to close things out in five games. Their postseason record is now an amazing 12-1. Only three other teams in the modern era have accomplished this.
The Canes jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first period and never looked back. They outshot the Habs 15-4 and outhit them 10-4 in that key period.
Carolina’s second line continued to do the major damage as Taylor Hall, Jackson Blake, and Logan Stankoven contributed. Stankoven and Hall both had a goal and two assists while Blake chipped in with a goal and an assist.
Goalie Frederik Andersen had 23 saves on 24 shots and earned his 12th win of the postseason. It was an emotional night for Andersen, who considered the late Claude Lemieux like “family”. Lemieux also served as his agent.
The home team got things rolling about midway through the first period when Taylor Hall knocked in a puck from in close. The Canadiens challenged the goal for goaltender interference because Stankoven had taken the puck into the net and brushed Dobes. Apparently, the refs didn’t think there was enough contact to overturn the goal so the score stood.
About six minutes later, Stankoven would snipe one off a pass from Hall and it was 2-0.
Just a minute and change after that, Eric Robinson broke in alone and got another one past Dobes and it was 3-0. It was Robinson’s third goal of the playoffs.
At 7:19 into the second period, Jackson Blake knocked in a rebound off a Hall shot and the pressure was off at 4-0. Media members started making plane reservations to Vegas.
Just before the end of the period, Shayne Gostisbehere scored a powerplay goal when he snuck behind the Montreal defense to tap in a Seth Jarvis pass. At the end of the second, it was 5-0.
At this point, the partisan Carolina crowd was serenading the arena by singing “ole’ ole’ ole’ ” as a (tribute) to Montreal fans.
The Habs ruined Andersen’s shutout bid with a powerplay goal late in the game by Cole Caulfield, but Seth Jarvis would close out the scoring on an empty-netter.
The Canes will take Saturday off before preparing for the next series against the Las Vegas Golden Knights which starts Tuesday night at the Lenovo Center. We will have much more about that coming up.
After the game during interviews, each player to a man was very business like as they knew they had another tough task before them.
Game Summary – https://www.nhl.com/scores/htmlreports/20252026/GS030315.HTM
Event Summary – https://www.nhl.com/scores/htmlreports/20252026/ES030315.HTM
Interviews – https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/0ooz4291rrb3ld5ujaf3d/ACOQahJeYtuujlOBt7OWbRg?rlkey=aa0m2dn4482jqnggu5xbartot&e=1&st=4lsqr73l&dl=0
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