The Carolina Hurricanes took the first step in what they hope will be a measure of redemption against the Boston Bruins with a 5-1 victory in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference first-round series.
Boston has defeated Carolina in the playoffs two of the last three years, sweeping the 2019 Eastern Conference Finals and winning in five in the first round a year later.
Antti Raanta, starting in place of the injured Frederik Andersen, made 35 saves. Seth Jarvis and Vincent Trocheck each had a goal and an assist for Carolina, who also saw Nino Niederreiter, Teuvo Teravainen and Andrei Svechnikov score.
"For me, it was obviously the first start in the playoffs, in the NHL", Raanta said. "I was just trying to focus on the things that have (allowed me) to be successful.
"It was working nicely. But it's only one game, one win, and now it's just regrouping and getting ready for Wednesday."
"Rants' played really well, made some big saves", Hurricanes head coach Rod Brind'Amour said. "Then we got our game going a little bit in the second."
Taylor Hall scored the only goal of the game for Boston while Linus Ullmark made 20 saves in his playoff debut.
Story of the game
Boston came out aggressive, outshooting Carolina 9-1 in the opening six minutes of the game. Hurricanes defenseman Brendan Smith cleared a puck on the goal line that got behind Raanta.
He then stopped consecutive shots by Derek Forbort and Charlie Coyle 32 seconds later.
"Their goalie made saves, and there's some pucks around the front of the net we just couldn't locate or take the right path to, but they were there", lamented Boston coach Bruce Cassidy.
"[Raanta] is paid to play, too, and he did a good job and he held them in the game early on. ... We were ready to play. Just couldn't put anything in the net early on."
With 3:32 left in the second period, Carolina went in front when Jarvis tipped a one-timer by Jacob Slavin past Ullmark from the right point.
A little over two minutes later, Niedereitter made it 2-0 on a wrist shot from above the left circle as Ullmark was blocked out by a screen from Jordan Staal.
"There was a lot of net-front going on with Jordan", Niedereitter said. "When he's thr big man in front, nobody sees anything. I was just trying to get the puck to the net and luckily, it went in. It was definitely a big goal."
Hall made it a one-goal game less than three minutes into the third period as he received a pass from Erik Haula and one-timed it from between the circles.
Teravainen finished off a two-on-one after taking a pass from Trocheck and shot under the crossbar.
"The Teravainen goal was really big", said Brind'Amour. "I don't think we had much action going on, and they were kind of coming. That settled it down a little bit for the rest of the game."
Trocheck then made it 4-1 banking a backhand shot in off of Ullmark's mask at the goal line.
"The (fourth) goal wouldn't have mattered, short side", Cassidy said. "[Ullmark] is going to tell you it's not a great goal to give up, but by then it's 4-1, so we're not going to put anything on Ullmark.
"Whatever goalie is in there for us, you got to fight to find pucks in this series."
Svechnikov scored into an empty net with 2:01 left to provide the final margin of victory.
"They do play a really good style of playoff hockey, and I'm sure that they're really looking forward to trying to beat the Bruins", Hall said. "It's been a couple of series now that haven't gone their way, and they play playoff hockey.
"It's going to be a long series no matter what happened tonight."