Hurricanes get defensive, top Islanders in opener
Sebastian Aho and Stefan Noesen scored power-play goals to help the Hurricanes beat the Islanders, 2-1, at Raleigh, N.C., Monday night to open their first-round playoff series.
Noesen’s tip on Brent Burns’s shot from up top proved to be the winner at 2:27 of the second period, and Antti
Raanta finished with 25 saves to lead a defensive effort in which the Hurricanes turned away every chance the Islanders had with a man advantage to take the lead in the best-of-seven series.
Carolina, which came into the game with the league's No. 2 penalty kill, denied all four of New York's power plays. The Hurricanes also withstood the final roughly 90 seconds to protect the lead after the Islanders had pulled Ilya Sorokin for the extra attacker.
Ryan Pulock beat Raanta early in the second period for the Islanders, a big goal coming moments after Carolina had taken a 2-0 lead on Noesen’s score. But that ended up being the last time either team would find the net, setting up a third-period grind to the final horn.
Sorokin finished with 35 saves for the Islanders, including a big one midway through the third when he slid across the crease just in time to stop Seth Jarvis near the post after a perfect pass from Teuvo Teravainen.
The Hurricanes are in the playoffs for the fifth straight season, the first such run since the former Hartford Whalers relocated to North Carolina in 1997. They won their last two regular season games to clinch a division title for the third straight season. And they entered the postseason second only to the Bruins in the NHL standings.
The Islanders had reached the Stanley Cup semifinals in 2020 and 2021 before missing the playoffs last season, but they grinded their way to the Eastern Conference's top wild-card spot in a tight finish to the season.
Flames, GM part ways
The Flames and general manager Brad Treliving agreed to part ways after he held that job for nearly a decade.
The team announced the move Monday as mutual, along with assistant Don Maloney’s promotion to president of hockey operations and interim GM. A search will begin immediately for a fulltime replacement for Treliving.
The Flames missed the playoffs for the second time in three years. They qualified for the postseason five times during Treliving’s nine-year tenure in Calgary.
“It’s a difficult day when you must part ways with a quality colleague and friend,” Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corporation president and CEO John Bean said. “We are grateful of Brad’s contributions over the past nine years and wish him every success in his future, both personally and professionally. But for our fans and our business, we need to move forward, and we are confident with Don’s experience that we will find the right general manger to build on Brad’s work and lead our team to the Stanley Cup.”
No announcement was made about the future of coach Darryl Sutter, who signed a contract extension through 2024 in October.
Calgary is the second team to change GMs this offseason, following the Penguins, who fired Ron Hextall along with assistant Chris Pryor and president of hockey operations Brian Burke.