Hurricanes make their own music with series-winning playoff victory over Islanders

The Carolina Hurricanes had just won in overtime Friday, finally finishing off the New York Islanders in the first round of the playoffs, and returned to their locker room to … silence?

Well, momentarily. Seems the Canes’ resident “music man,” massage therapist Mike Maresca, remained in Raleigh after the birth of a baby boy, Vincent, on Thursday. This night, there was no blaring music in the room after a big win.

But there was plenty of sound in the room. There was much to celebrate after the Canes’ 2-1 victory over the Islanders at UBS Arena that clinched the first-round Stanley Cup playoff series.

And there was relief. The Canes were a hockey team exhausted in victory. While they came away with a 4-2 series win, the Canes did it against an Islanders team that plays a rugged, give-no-quarter brand of hockey and made it that way for six games.

“It was definitely a grind,” Canes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “All the games were how we thought they would be.”

Twice, the Hurricanes won in overtime — in Game 2 on a Jesper Fast goal, then Friday as Paul Stastny got off a tight-angle shot, the puck glancing off the right skate of goalie Ilya Sorokin and into the net for a sudden winner. It was a series. Isles coach Lane Lambert said Friday in which the difference between the two teams was “marginal.”

The Canes did it Friday with goalie Frederik Andersen playing his first playoff game for the Hurricanes. They won it when two old pros, Stastny and Derek Stepan, teamed up for the winner, Stepan making a hustling play to keep the puck in the zone before getting it down to Stastny for the shot.

Every team learns something about itself in the cauldron of the playoffs. That was true for the Hurricanes, captain Jordan Staal said.

“We learned how to win a series and how hard it is and how much it takes,” Staal said. “You look around this room after the game and the boys are tired and beat up. It’s not easy.

“I think everybody is beginning to learn about all those little things, all those battles that go into it. We’ll all feel better once it’s all done but you’ve got to battle through it, the ups and downs, all those things, and find a way.”

In Game 6, that meant fighting through a dismal first period and then a not-so-great second as the Islanders clung to a 1-0 lead and let goalie Ilya Sorokin continue to stymie the Canes.

“We didn’t play our game,” forward Jordan Martinook said. “They were coming at us, coming at us. Then in the third you could see it totally flipped.

“I don’t want us to wait two periods but we’re always going to get to it at some point. Obviously, the third was clinical.”

Sebastian Aho scored midway through the third to tie it 1-1, Brind’Amour noting, “We had to scratch and claw just to get the one.”

The Canes kept pressing, outshooting the Islanders 19-5 in the period, making Sorokin produce some high-quality saves.

“It was about creating momentum,” Martinook said. “Every single line was doing something to help the next line out to get going.”

Andersen, eager to play. was doing his part, once using his mask to stop the puck as he rolled around the crease. Sorokin had 39 saves and Andersen 33 – with 27 stops in the first 40 minutes.

“Those first two periods, oh my goodness,” Martinook said of Andersen.

But this would be a team win. Go up and down the lineup and everyone had a hand in it. The D-men – Brent Burns and Jaccob Slavin, Brady Skjei and Brett Pesce, and Shayne Gostisbehere and Jalen Chatfield – did their part, putting in the minutes, absorbing some punishment, making the plays.

“We had some big showings tonight,” Staal said. “But we need everyone. We’ve had to battle through some injuries.”

The Canes lost forwards Max Pacioretty, Andrei Svechnikov and Teuvo Teravainen – “We’re missing three All-Star players,” Brind’Amour said – to injuries at various points in the regular season and now the playoffs as Teravainen went out. Forward Jack Drury missed the past two games.

The Canes now await the winner of the series between the New Jersey Devils and New York Rangers. That’s next.

“We’ve got a group of guys in here who believe,” Martinook said. “This group of guys just finds a way to pick each other up.

“It’s not going to be pretty and not going to be a bunch of goals, but we know who we are. When we can play to our strengths and to our ability, it’s pretty good.”