The Hurricanes became the first NHL team since 1985 to start the playoffs with eight straight wins.
PHILADELPHIA — Jackson Blake’s goal at 5:31 of overtime lifted the Carolina Hurricanes to a 3-2 win in Game 4, completing a historic second-round sweep of the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday at Xfinity Mobile Arena. After Jaccob Slavin pushed the puck ahead in the neutral zone, Taylor Hall, who had three assists, found Blake as he entered the zone. Blake’s shot, his second tally of the game and fourth of the playoffs, hit Dan Vladar in the arm before bouncing behind the goalie and into the net. “A lot went down on that goal,” Blake said. “A lot of great plays.”
The Hurricanes, just the fifth team in NHL history and the first since the 1985 Edmonton Oilers to start the playoffs with wins in their first eight games, now await the winner of the Buffalo Sabres-Montreal Canadiens series in the Eastern Conference finals. That series is tied 1-1 entering Game 3 on Sunday night. “It’s a tough pill to swallow right now,” Philadelphia captain Sean Couturier said. “We really believed that we had a chance. It’s tough right now. At the same time, proud of the way this team battled to the end. There was no quit. For a young team like us, it’s a great experience.”
Carolina took its first lead of the game early in the third period. Hall drove around Flyers rookie Oliver Bonk and found a charging Logan Stankoven, who had a step on Alex Bump. Stankoven easily scored his seventh goal of the playoffs at 4:13. But the Flyers responded less than two minutes later on Bump’s second goal of the playoffs. Travis Konecny made it happen with his work behind the net, streaking in to hit K’Andre Miller and then outmaneuvering Miller and Jordan Staal before sliding the puck to an open Bump between the circles.
The Flyers opened the scoring at 7:50 of the first period. Trevor Zegras feathered a pass to Tyson Foerster in the high slot. Foerster took a couple of strides forward and beat Hurricanes goalie Frederik Andersen cleanly with a wrist shot. The goal was Foerster’s first playoff point in 10 games. Shortly after the Flyers had a five-on-three power-play opportunity for 40 seconds on which they failed to convert, the Hurricanes tied it at 12:35. Hall won an offensive zone draw, leading to Blake’s shot from the wall that deflected in off Jamie Drysdale, who was battling for position in front of the net with Stankoven. Blake was credited with his third of the playoffs.
Hall, a winger, had taken just 49 faceoffs in the regular season, winning only 20. “Sometimes for faceoff guys like (Flyers center Christian Dvorak), it’s hard to go against someone like me,” Hall said. “They don’t really know what I’m going to do.”
The Flyers’ season ends after their first playoff berth since 2019-20. They advanced to meet the Eastern Conference-leading Hurricanes after beating the Pittsburgh Penguins in six games in the first round. “We had some guys tired,” Philadelphia coach Rick Tocchet said. “We squeezed as much juice (as we could) from this team. I can’t ask for more. We hung in there. That’s a good hockey team over there. They roll four lines, they were flying. We’ve got some guys banged up — broken ribs, all that sort of stuff. They gave it all. Obviously we’d like a little more possession, and things we could have done, but we ran some guys into the ground a little bit, and they tried tonight.”
Andersen steady as usual. After a rough regular season, Andersen has been a rock for Carolina throughout the playoffs. He stopped 15 of 17 shots and added a second close-out win in a performance that accomplished the team’s goal of advancing.
