Hurricanes push Senators to brink with Game 3 win in Eastern 1st Round

OTTAWA -- Logan Stankoven opened the scoring for the third straight game for the Carolina Hurricanes, who took a 3-0 series lead against the Ottawa Senators with a 2-1 win in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference First Round at Canadian Tire Centre on Thursday.​

Jackson Blake also scored for the Hurricanes, who are the No. 1 seed from the Metropolitan Division and Eastern Conference. Frederik Andersen made 21 saves.

Carolina can sweep the best-of-7 series in Game 4 here on Saturday (3 p.m. ET; TVAS, SN, TBS, truTV, FDSNSO, HBO MAX).

“Bit of a weird game with so many power plays and not a lot of momentum for either side,” Carolina forward Taylor Hall said. “But those are games that are tight and you have to win if you want to take the series. So, we're feeling good about ourselves, but you know, the hardest to win is always that fourth win.”

Drake Batherson scored for the Senators, who are the second wild card in the East. Linus Ullmark made 25 saves.

“Just going to keep believing, keep playing our game,” Ottawa forward Tim Stutzle said. “I mean, we scored three goals in three games, so it's tough to win like that, and we just got to find a way.”

Jake Sanderson, Ottawa’s top defenseman, left the game in the second period. He was hit in the head by Hall, who assessed a minor penalty for an illegal check, at 4:24 of the second period. Sanderson played two shifts after the hit by Hall before heading down the tunnel.

Ottawa coach Travis Green confirmed postgame that the reason Sanderson left was due to the hit to the head. 

“Not fun,” Ottawa defenseman Thomas Chabot said. “That's the biggest piece of our team, probably. So seeing him going down the tunnel is not good. He plays such big minutes. The way he plays, it's like I've said earlier this year when we lost him, there's no other Jake Sanderson, so it's a big loss for us, for sure, and hopefully he's doing good.” 

The Senators went 0-for-5 on the power play, generating just four shots on goal. That included a 5-on-3 opportunity for 1:28 in the second period.

“Power play lost us the game,” Ottawa captain Brady Tkachuk said. “It was pretty frustrating, but we’ve got to find a way. Things don't go your way, and we've never quit all season. Just got to step up to the occasion.”

Carolina went 0-for-4 on the power play, including 0-for-3 in the first period.

“Both penalty kills, theirs was good, and ours was really good, too, so they kind of canceled each other out,” Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “Obviously, the 5-on-3 was a big turning point in the game.”

Stankoven became the first player in franchise history to score the opening goal in three straight Stanley Cup Playoff games at 5:13 of the first period. Hall picked up his own rebound off Ullmark, skated around the net and found Stankoven in the left face-off circle, where the forward one-timed it bar down over the blocker of the goalie.

“Good feeling to start the game and takes a little bit of pressure off of us,” Stankoven said. “They were going to be excited to come out and try to steal this one, so it was nice just to settle things down.” 

Batherson tied the game 1-1 at 16:06 of the second period. Nick Cousins found Batherson down low all alone, and he went forehand-to-backhand over the pads of Andersen.

“Both teams are fighting for space,” Green said. “I think our offensive game has improved the last two games. It's not going to be wide-open hockey. It's going to be a lot of, call it ugly, hard-working hockey. We've got to find a way to get a puck to a net, get to the net.”

Blake quickly responded, giving the Hurricanes the lead back at 17:29. K'Andre Miller took a cross-ice feed from Hall, faked a shot from the top of the left circle then passed back across the ice to Blake, who sent a wrist shot past a sprawling Ullmark to make it 2-1.

“They scored one, the building erupted a little bit there, and I don't know if they got a little momentum there, and then just to get that one quick answer right away, I think that was really big for us as a group,” Blake said.

NOTES: Stankoven’s opening-goal streak is one short of the longest in NHL history (Michel Goulet, Games 2-5 of the 1985 Division Semifinals for the Quebec Nordiques). … Stankoven became the second player in NHL history to score the game-opening goal in each of his team’s first three games of a postseason, joining George Armstrong (1956, Toronto Maple Leafs).