The Carolina Hurricanes scored twice on the power play in defeating the New York Islanders 2-1 in Game 1 of their first-round Eastern Conference playoff series at PNC Arena.
Sebastian Aho and Stefan Noesen had the Carolina goals while Brent Burns and Martin Necas each had two assists. Antti Raanta made 25 saves for the Metropolitan division champions.
"It's nice to get ahead obviously and play with the lead", Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour said. "That game went pretty much how we thought it would. They made great saves, we had good saves. Both teams were going pretty hard."
Ryan Pulock scored New York's only goal while Ilya Sorokin stopped 35 shots for the top wild card Islanders, who were 0 for 4 on the power play.
"I thought there was certainly some positives to the game", said Islanders head coach Lane Lambert. "Got better as the game went on. Just got to be ready for Game 2."
Carolina special teams the difference in Game 1 victory
The Hurricanes scored five seconds into their first power play of the game as Aho one-timed a shot from the right faceoff circle off of a pass from Burns.
"Obviously, it helps. Big goal", Aho said. "Gives you a little confidence. I felt the power play was good tonight overall."
Anders Lee had two excellent chances to tie the game, first redirecting a shot from the top of the crease then firing a low shot on a New York power play, but Raanta was on hand to stop both attempts.
"A couple shots I couldn't see, but our guys were blocking those", the Carolina goaltender said. "In the first period, I got a couple good saves to get [me] into the game. Most of the time, we played really well in front of the net, so I just needed to make the first save."
Noesen doubled the Hurricanes' lead 2:27 into the second period when Necas made a no-look pass to Burns, the former Boston and San Jose defenseman one-timing a shot from the point that Noesen in front.
"The puck didn't stay on our sticks too long", Necas said. "It's all about confidence. You get a couple touches on the power play, and the guys who are supposed to play with the puck more get the feeling of five-on-five better. It was good momentum on the power play."
Just 24 seconds later, the Islanders made it a 2-1 game as Pulock seemingly whiffed on a wrist shot in the right circle, but the puck came off of the shaft of Raanta's stick and into the net.
"They came hard", said New York defenseman Noah Dobson. "Once you got [past] the nerves, I thought we settled into the game [at] five-on-five well. In the second period, we had some really good zone shifts. There's not much space out there. We're going to have to create it ourselves, but there's some stuff in that game we can build on."
Mathew Barzal returned to the Islanders' lineup after missing the last 23 games with a lower-body injury and he had two shots on goal and a blocked shot in 21:12 of ice time.
He had 19 points (four goals, 15 assists) in 58 games when New York had the man-advantage and his presence should boost a power play that went 1 for 19 over the final nine regular-season games.
"We were without Barzal for a long period of time, and when we had him, we had some success", Lambert said. "We had some good looks certainly early on in the power play. We had some chances to score and just couldn't find the back of the net."
Game 2 is Wednesday night in Raleigh with puck drop scheduled for 7pm Eastern time.