WASHINGTON — Very few people in the arena knew the puck was in the net, including Jaccob Slavin, who shot it through traffic. Goaltender Logan Thompson figured it out when he saw the red light on behind him.
“I didn’t know it went in until I saw Jordan Staal, Staalsy, coming with his arms up yelling at me,” Slavin said.
Seeing it to believe it, Slavin’s overtime goal gave the Carolina Hurricanes a 2-1 victory at the Washington Capitals in Game 1 of their second-round series on Tuesday night. The winner came on their 94th attempt and 33rd that got on net, showing the shot volume offense that has gotten them to this point.
“We were all over it, and we knew we had to just throw everything at the net,” Slavin said. “That mentality paid off there at the end.”
Carolina allowed Washington to get just 14 shots on goal, the second-fewest in Hartford Whalers/Hurricanes history. Frederik Andersen gave up just an early second-period goal to Aliaksei Protas in his return from missing the end of the first round because of injury.
“Just trying to take what comes my way and be in that moment all the time and just stay with it,” Andersen said. “You don’t know when that next big save’s going to happen.”
Thompson made 31 of them for the Capitals, who spent large swaths of time defending in their own end. That sucked a lot of the energy out of the top seed in the Eastern Conference, which is accustomed to putting on the pressure rather than absorbing it.
“We didn’t play our style of hockey,” Washington’s Dylan Strome said. “We let them dictate.”
The Capitals led from Protas’ goal until nearly the midway point of the third, when an errant pass from Protas banked off teammate Alex Alexeyev’s right skate and to Jesperi Kotkaniemi, who fed Logan Stankoven to tie it.
“I just thought I’d rip it,” Stankoven said. “It was nice to see it go in.”
Carolina remains the only team perfect on the penalty kill this postseason, keeping Washington’s power play off the board twice to improve to 17 of 17. That, along with Kotkaniemi and Stankoven taking advantage of a mistake and Slavin scoring with Seth Jarvis screening Thompson was the difference.
“We got some traffic,” coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “Obviously, it wasn’t the greatest of goals, but they all count.”
Up next
Game 2 is Thursday night in Washington before the series shifts to Raleigh, North Carolina, for 3 and 4.