The Hurricanes thought they had won it with 2:42 left in the first overtime when Jankowski scored during a delayed penalty. The players piled off the bench jumping up and down, celebrating wildly. Fans started to happily stream out of the arena.
The referees, though, went to the penalty box for a review. The decision: no goal. Hurricanes captain Jordan Staal was offside entering the offensive zone on the goal sequence. He had the puck on his stick but was ruled not to have full control before his skates entered the zone.
The Senators knew it right away.
Travis Green, their coach, had seen the play in real time and saw what he believed to been offside. As the Hurricanes pig piled on Jankowski, the Senators stood at the bench, some looking at the replays playing on their bench, others at the jumbotron.
“We weren’t going anywhere,” Green said.
The drama wasn’t finished.
Ottawa’s Warren Foegele had denied Martinook a clear scoring opportunity with the hooking penalty he committed before the disallowed goal. So, time was wound back to when Staal stepped offside, and Martinook was awarded a penalty shot with 3:11 left in the first overtime.
“I was trying to tell them we needed the power play, not the penalty shot,” Martinook said through a smile.
He failed to score, stoned by a red-hot Linus Ullmark, who stacked his glove atop his left pad and turned away the wrist shot. It was one of 43 saves Ullmark made in the game.
“I didn’t feel very good about myself after that penalty shot,” the veteran forward said. “The intermission felt really long. Cool. I’m happy it worked out that way. It didn’t matter who scored. It was going to be a long night if that penalty shot came back to bite me.”
That was the hope for the Senators, who looked at the sequence as a series of get-out-of-jail cards.
“Yeah, you never know,” Ottawa forward Drake Batherson said. ”I think we had some chances to put it away after that and we were unable to. That’s the way it goes. We have to move on and get ready for the next one.”
Green couldn’t remember anything like what transpired in overtime Monday. This is a man who played 970 regular-season games in the NHL and another 56 in the playoffs. He has coached 499 regular-season games in the NHL and another 25 in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
He was proud his team regrouped and pushed, generating chances to win, though unable to solve Carolina goalie Frederik Andersen for a third time.
“(Heck) of an effort,” he said. “Playoffs are hard, the games you lose. This one is going to sting. We get a couple of days to recoup.”
Game 3 is in Ottawa on Thursday (7:30 p.m. ET; CBC, TVAS, SN, TBS, FDSNSO, HBO MAX).
The odds are long for the Senators after Martinook’s redemption.
Teams that take a 2-0 lead in a best-of-7 series in the Stanley Cup Playoffs are 360-58 (.861), including 270-36 (.882) when starting at home.
The Senators showed in Game 2 that the margin is even thinner than it was in Game 1. They are building their game and believe they have enough runway to get all the way back.
Martinook says it’s up to the Hurricanes to disabuse them of that notion in a little less than 72 hours.
“It’s on us to go in there, put our best foot forward and get the next one,” he said.
