William Carrier scored the tiebreaking goal with 5:08 remaining in the third period Thursday night for the Carolina Hurricanes, who squandered a pair of leads before beating the New York Islanders 5-3 in Elmont, N.Y.
Carrier backhanded home the rebound of a shot by Andrei Svechnikov. The Hurricanes blew leads of 2-0 and 3-2 before winning for the fifth time in six games (5-1-0).
Logan Stankoven and Jesperi Kotkaniemi scored early in the first period, and Svechnikov added a goal in the second for Carolina, which leads the NHL with 13 wins and 28 points. Jalen Chatfield added an empty-net goal with 49.3 seconds remaining.
Goaltender Brandon Bussi made 24 saves, including a point-blank stop of Bo Horvat seconds before Chatfield’s goal.
Mitchell Chaffee, Brayden Schenn and Victor Eklund scored in the second period for the Islanders, who have lost two straight. Goaltender Semyon Varlamov recorded 34 saves.
The Hurricanes raced to an early 2-0 lead, scoring on two of their first three shots.
Stankoven scored on Carolina’s first shot, 57 seconds after the opening faceoff, when he took a drop pass from Jackson Blake, who was surrounded by the Islanders’ Anthony Duclair, Jean-Gabriel Pageau and Tony DeAngelo, and beat Varlamov from the left faceoff circle.
The Hurricanes doubled their lead at the 3:20 mark when Jordan Martinook’s pass into the crease glanced off Kotkaniemi’s extended stick and fluttered past Varlamov.
The Islanders began their comeback by scoring twice in a span of 2:04 early in the second period. Chaffee redirected Matthew Schaefer’s shot from the top of the slot at the 3:40 mark before Schenn scored on a wraparound following a turnover by Carolina defenseman Juuso Valimaki.
The Hurricanes snapped the tie just one minute later when Svechnikov’s shot glanced off Varlamov’s leg before the winger backhanded the rebound into the net.
Eklund tied the score again with 2:47 remaining in the period when his shot from the right slot sailed past Bussi.
–Field Level Media
