Canes 'Stick With The Process' For Game 1 Win

RALEIGH, N.C. - For almost 50 minutes of game time, it felt like Tuesday night at Capital One Arena was going to go down as a frustrating start to the Carolina Hurricanes’ second-round series.

Nearly tripling the Metropolitan Division Champion Washington Capitals in shot attempts (94-34), the Carolina Hurricanes were throwing everything and the kitchen sink toward the net. Some attempts were unintentionally blocked by teammates, some were knocked down by Capitals defenders admirably trying to help out their backstop, and what did reach Logan Thompson wasn't beating him.

It was getting late in the game, yet the Canes kept beating the drum.

They'd been in that position before, and they weren't going to waiver. And as time would eventually reveal, they shouldn't have.

“It’s just trusting the game plan. That’s what our game is all about - getting in (the goalie’s) eyes and lots of shot volume, that’s what Rod preaches," Logan Stankoven reasoned post-game. "Sometimes, not everything’s going to go in, so you’ve got to be patient, and that worked out well for us tonight.”

By the middle portion of the third period, frustration from the Canes would have been understood. Unable to crack Thompson with their abundance of attempts, Rod Brind'Amour and his bench instead leaned on the fact that they just needed one to find twine.

"It’s a little different if they’re up by a couple, but I think when the game’s just one shot away, it makes it a little easier to stick with the process," Brind'Amour said. "We were able to keep it to one, and you know you’re in the game."

It was another evening in which a heavy portion of Carolina's efforts at getting pucks on net were coming from their blueliners, trying to fit one through traffic, get a redirection, or leave a loose puck for a rebound opportunity. Despite all of those tries, Stankoven's equalizer then somewhat ironically came courtesy of another key facet of the Canes' game - the forecheck.

A missed connection on a zone entry between Dmitry Orlov and Taylor Hall left the puck on the tape of the Capitals in their own end with just over 10 minutes remaining in regulation. Although Trevor van Riemsdyk had enough time to make a quick shuffle play along the wall to the evening's opening goal-scorer, Aliaksei Protas, before he could make a subsequent successful pass to Alexander Alexeyev, an approaching Jesperi Kotkaniemi provided just enough heat to force an error. Making a quick retrieval and distributing it to an unmarked Stankoven in the slot, the Canes then found themselves on an even playing field with a 1-1 score.

“Great play by KK there to get the puck to me. Their defenseman kind of was taking away the pass to Hallsy, so I just thought I’d rip it. It was nice to see it go in," Stankoven described.

Allowing the Canes to "stick with what they were doing and try to find the next one," in the words of Brind'Amour, the group continued the same process through the end of regulation before heading to their third overtime in their last four playoff games.

But in that extra session, they didn't need long. Just 3:06, to be exact.

As he drifted from the neutral zone back into his own end, Capitals defenseman Jakob Chychrun couldn't handle a puck swatted his direction by his former Arizona Coyotes teammate, Jordan Martinook.

It was the slightest of shortcomings, but it opened the door for Carolina to have an offensive zone possession that mirrored many others that had taken place already on the night.

Seth Jarvis put the pressure on Chychrun, won a board battle along the wall, and rimmed it hard around the net, where Orlov was waiting for it at the point. Orlov's only objective was to make the smart and simple play of getting it deep. Martinook was residing down low, where he then swung it to the point opposite of where Orlov had been, landing it on the stick of Jaccob Slavin.

With a half-wound-up try, on his game-leading fifth shot on goal, the best defensive defenseman in hockey showcased his offensive abilities and gave the Canes exactly what they'd been looking for for over 60 minutes. With Thompson and seven additional bodies in the vicinity, the puck had the perfect path from Slavin's Bauer Hyperlite stick to the back of the net.

“[The] puck came up to me at the point there, and I was just trying to get it to the net," Slavin chronicled post-game. "I knew we had some numbers at the net, but I didn’t know it went in until I saw Staalsy coming with his arms up at me."

It was jubilation for the Canes in front of a mostly stunned 18,573.

“You just kind of felt like it was going to come. Sometimes it’s hard to explain those feelings, but it didn’t feel like anybody was frustrated on the bench or anything. We’d hit four or five posts, nobody was too worked up about it," Martinook described. "We’ve played this way long enough to know that you’re going to create a break, or get your breaks by the way you’re playing. It felt like last night was a prime example of if you stick with what we do, you’ll get rewarded for it.”

Rewarded with a win and the first lead of the series, it was vindication for Brind'Amour and crew.

“I thought our guys played hard every shift, right from the start of the game. I liked how we were playing," the head coach said. "Obviously, we were down, but there’s a certain game plan. Both teams have it. I thought we were on it... Sometimes you don’t get rewarded, but (in Game 1) we did.”