"He's a very patient goalie, so I figured I'd try and shoot it five-hole," Williams explained, simply enough.
Mr. Game 7 morphed into Mr. Round 8 and brought the house down.
Reimer then stopped Anders Lee, and victory belonged to the Canes with Williams as the hero in his long-awaited return. A better ending could not have been scripted.
"Not really," Brind'Amour agreed. "Only Willy can make that up."
"It was all a conspiracy from the beginning. That was the plan," Reimer joked. "We fooled everyone."
3. He's Back
Williams first touched the ice two minutes and 35 seconds into career game No. 1,245, and he was greeted with a loud ovation from the eighth sellout crowd the Hurricanes have had at PNC Arena this season.
Finally, Williams was back.
And he was admittedly a bit nervous about it, maybe more so than he's used to being.
"I was nervous the whole game, to be honest. It was a playoff game out there. That's what it felt like that. Teams weren't giving an inch. There were chances either way, and it could have gone either way," he said. "I've played over 1,200 of these, so I was like, 'OK, Justin. Get real here. You can do this.' It was fun. We got what we wanted: two points."