The Hurricanes lead the best-of-7 series 3-1. Game 5 is at Lenovo Center in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Friday (8 p.m. ET; HBO MAX, tru TV, TNT, SN, TVAS, CBC).
Frederik Andersen made 18 saves for his third shutout of the playoffs, and Sebastian Aho, Jordan Staal and Logan Stankoven each scored in a span of 2:47 in the first period for Carolina, the No. 1 seed in the Metropolitan Division. Nikolaj Ehlers and Shayne Gostisbehere each had two assists.
Jakub Dobes made 39 saves for Montreal, the No. 3 seed in the Atlantic Division, which has lost three straight after not losing consecutive games in a pair of seven-game series wins in the first two rounds.
The Hurricanes converted their second power play opportunity of the game to begin building a 3-0 lead with three quick goals.
Aho made it 1-0 on the man-advantage at 14:59. He scored on a one-timer from above the right face-off dot on a pass from Ehlers, completing a play Aho began with a pass back to Gostisbehere at the right point.
Staal scored at 16:07 to make it 2-0. The Carolina captain battled with Josh Anderson in front of the net to get his stick down and deflect K’Andre Miller’s centering pass between Dobes’ pads after the Hurricanes defenseman went wide around Canadiens forward Phillip Danault to set up Staal with a backhand into the goalmouth from the right corner.
Stankoven pushed it to 3-0 at 17:46. He broke down the right side 2-on-1 with Jackson Blake to take a cross-ice pass and score on a shot over Dobes’ outstretched left pad for his team-leading eighth goal in 12 playoff games.
The Canadiens were outshot 19-3 in the third period, prompting the crowd to chant, “Shoot the puck! Shoot the puck!” at one point when they held possession in the offensive zone before Nick Suzuki got their first shot at 17:05 of the period.
Andrei Svechnikov scored for a second straight game, shooting into an empty net with 1:54 remaining for the 4-0 final.
