(Raleigh) Stefan Noesen took advantage of a loose puck to beat Semyon Varlamov early in the third period and the Carolina Hurricanes beat the New York Islanders 3-1 on Saturday.
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The Hurricanes took a 1-0 lead in their first round series. The second match will be played Monday evening.
Noeson scored at 3:44, breaking the 1-1 deadlock. Martin Necas completed in an empty net with 1:32 remaining.
Frederik Andersen made several big saves in front of the Carolina net, stopping 34 pucks.
“You don’t want to be a goaltending team, but Freddie has always been there for us and made the big saves when we needed them,” defenseman Brady Skjei said. But we definitely need to help him more. »
Midway through the third period, Andersen fell on his back, but still made the full-length save against Noah Dobson.
The goalie said he just “tried something, to get closer to the puck and put something on it.”
The head coach of the Islanders, Quebecer Patrick Roy, still found that his team played a good game.
“It’s encouraging because we did a lot of good things,” Roy said. It was a good battle, but we had our chances. So that’s frustrating as well. »
Evgeny Kuznetsov also scored for the Hurricanes. The forward scored on the power play, just 1:35 into the game, in his playoff debut with his new team.
Despite his goal, Kuznetsov, who won the Stanley Cup with the Washington Capitals in 2018, described his team’s first 40 minutes of play as “unacceptable.”
“Several things went wrong,” Kuznetsov said. They dominated us in shots and I had the impression that they dominated us in certain aspects of the game. On the other hand, that’s why we have a very good team. We regrouped after the second period. We knew what we needed to fix and we did it. »
Rookie Kyle MacLean scored the Islanders’ goal in the first period. Varlamov blocked 23 shots.
The Islanders qualified for the playoffs for the fifth time in six years. The Hurricanes are in spring ball for a sixth consecutive time.
Jean-Gabriel Pageau, who was injured in the last game of the regular season, was not in uniform for the Islanders.
For the Hurricanes, Jesper Fast was not in the lineup, also injured during the 82e match of the season for his team.