{"id":685820,"date":"2026-05-22T06:34:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T06:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/685820\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T06:34:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T06:34:08","slug":"montreal-canadiens-strike-early-rout-carolina-hurricanes-to-take-1-0-lead-in-eastern-conference-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/685820\/","title":{"rendered":"Montreal Canadiens strike early, rout Carolina Hurricanes to take 1-0 lead in Eastern Conference Final"},"content":{"rendered":"

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) \u2014 The Montreal Canadiens<\/a> pounced for four first-period goals on slow-starting Carolina \u2014 coming off the longest postseason break in more than a century \u2014 and handed the Hurricanes their first loss of the playoffs with a 6-2 victory Thursday night in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Final.<\/p>\n

Cole Caufield<\/a> and Phillip Danault<\/a> scored in the opening four minutes, Alexandre Texier<\/a> followed four minutes later, and Ivan Demidov<\/a> finished a breakaway for a shocking 4-1 lead midway through the opening period. That came against the Eastern Conference\u2019s top seed, which hadn\u2019t allowed more than two goals in an 8-0 playoff start.<\/p>\n

Juraj Slafkovksy scored twice in the third period for Montreal, the second on a late empty-netter, while Jakub Dobes<\/a> had 24 saves.<\/p>\n

Game 2 is Saturday night.<\/p>\n

The Hurricanes were the first team to sweep their first two playoff rounds since the NHL went to best-of-seven series in all four rounds in 1987. But that led to a lengthy break of 11 days, the longest rest for any team before starting the next playoff run since at least 1920, while waiting on the Canadiens to battle their way past Tampa Bay and Buffalo.<\/p>\n

That led to the rest-versus-rust discussion about the Hurricanes, along with how well the Canadiens would pivot from those to-the-limit wins.<\/p>\n

And outside of Seth Jarvis<\/a> beating Dobes just 33 seconds in, the Canadiens answered that question resoundingly in those opening minutes to extend Carolina\u2019s misery in this round.<\/p>\n

Much of Carolina\u2019s success comes from pressuring opponents in the offensive zone and minimizing chances going the other way. But Montreal effectively moved the puck out of danger against Carolina\u2019s aggressive pressure early, setting up clean breakouts and multiple breakaway chances at Frederik Andersen<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Danault\u2019s goal was a full-speed breakaway right up the middle off a feed from Alexandre Carrier<\/a>, while Demidov went forehand-backhand-forehand to beat Andersen for the 4-1 lead with 8:28 left in the first.<\/p>\n

Andersen was leading the postseason in goals-against average (1.12) and save percentage (.950), but finished with just 16 saves.<\/p>\n

Eric Robinson<\/a> also scored for Carolina, which is in the Eastern final for the third time in four years and fourth time in the current eight-season playoff run under Rod Brind\u2019Amour. But the Hurricanes are now 1-13 in those games, including sweeps against Boston in 2019 and Florida in 2023.<\/p>\n

Carolina\u2019s loss meant the two Stanley Cup favorites both lost the opener of the conference finals. Colorado lost at home to Vegas on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NHL playoffs: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/stanley-cup and https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nhl<\/p>\n

Aaron Beard, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) \u2014 The Montreal Canadiens pounced for four first-period goals on slow-starting Carolina \u2014 coming off…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":685821,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,96396,78846,448,82],"class_list":["post-685820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-carolina-hurricanes-sports-hockey-team-team-nhl-api-12","tag-montreal-canadiens-sports-hockey-team-team-nhl-api-8","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=685820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/685821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=685820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=685820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=685820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}