Islanders extend series with Game 5 win over Canes
— The second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs are waiting for the Carolina Hurricanes but the New York Islanders aren’t quite ready for their season to end yet.
Pierre Engvall had a goal and an assist to lead the Isles to a 3-2 win over the Canes in Game 5 on Tuesday at PNC Arena.
The Canes still lead the first-round series 3-2 and can close out the Isles on Friday in Game 6 on the road.
This series had been the only one in either conference to avoid the upside-down trend of road teams winning more games than the home teams. The road team had only won once in this series but across the league the road teams were 20-12 in first-round games through Monday.
But the Isles were opportunistic on Tuesday with Engvall's goal in the first period, followed by a pair of goals in the second period. Engvall turned a rare mistake by the Canes’ defensive pairing of Brent Burns and Jaccob Slavin into a 1-0 lead.
Burns tried the pass the puck up the sideboards to Slavin but the two couldn’t connect and the puck bounced toward the middle of the ice, where Engvall was ready to pick up the pieces for his first goal of the series at 10:27 in the first.
The Canes momentarily tied the game at 1-1 on power-play goal by Stefan Noesen with 1:49 left in the period. Noesen deposited a perfect pass from Sebastian Aho but New York coach Lane Lambert challenged that Noesen was offsides before the possession started for the Canes.
Lambert won the challenge and the Isles took the 1-0 lead into the first intermission.
Brock Nelson made it 2-0 when he scored by volleying a puck that had bounced off of the face of Carolina's Aho at 3:16 in the second period.
Paul Stastny cut New York's lead in half when he redirected a shot by Jalen Chatfield at 13:10 in the second period.
The Isles pushed their margin back two goals when Mathew Barzal roofed his second goal of the series past Carolina goalie Antti Raanta (19 saves) with 1:55 left in the second.
The Canes got it back to 3-2 on Aho's goal at 10:28 in the third period but New York goalie Ilya Sorokin (34 saves) was able to prevent the Canes from evening the game up.
Source: WRALSportsFan
