MONTREAL — In two of the last three postseasons, the Carolina Hurricanes had short stays in the Eastern Conference final.

They’re one game away from another — and they’re enjoying this one a bit more.

Carolina beat the Montreal Canadiens 4-0 in Game 4 at the Bell Centre on Wednesday, pushing their series lead to 3-1 and moving within one victory of a matchup with the Vegas Golden Knights in the Stanley Cup Final.

A three-goal first period Wednesday fueled the Hurricanes, who turned the territorial dominance they’d established in Games 2 and 3 into a multi-goal lead against a desperate opponent. The early advantage allowed them to tighten the screws even more against the Canadiens, whose first shot of the game didn’t come until more than eight minutes after puck drop.

The start unfolded exactly as the Hurricanes hoped.

“Sometimes you gotta find the body blows to get to the head,” forward Logan Stankoven said. “When you can stack shifts and set up the other guys for success, good things will continue to happen.

By the end of the period, Carolina held a 3-0 lead and a 12-5 edge in shots, and the gap only increased as the game progressed; Carolina finished the game with 43 shots to the Canadiens’ 18. Montreal didn’t log a shot on goal in the third period until 2:55 remained.

It might have been the strongest game of the postseason for the Hurricanes, who swept the Ottawa Senators and Philadelphia Flyers before dropping Game 1 to Montreal by a score of 6-2. They’ve charged back since, putting themselves 60 minutes from their first Eastern Conference title since 2006. They’ve lost in this round three times since, including in four games to the Florida Panthers in 2023 and in five games last year.

Carolina’s first-period goal scorers were Sebastian Aho, Jordan Staal and Stankoven. Andrei Svechnikov added an empty netter. Nikolaj Ehlers assisted on Aho’s and Staal’s goals, and goaltender Frederik Andersen made 18 saves.

This is not the first time these playoffs the Canadiens have had their season on the line; they won Game 7 twice in the first two rounds. But a 3-1 deficit is a challenge this group has not faced since the first round of last year’s playoffs, when they lost Game 4 on home ice to the Washington Capitals before losing Game 5 on the road, a game they also trailed 3-0 before finally losing 4-1.

It’s not the losing that should bother the Canadiens — the Hurricanes are an extremely difficult opponent — but the repetitive nature of the losses should be of some concern to this young team and its bench boss, Martin St. Louis, coaching his fourth career playoff series.

The one repetitive thing that is most encouraging for the Canadiens is the continued excellence of rookie goaltender Jakub Dobeš, who celebrated his 25th birthday with 39 saves, including stopping breakaways by Jackson Blake and Seth Jarvis.

“I feel like we’ve been underdogs the whole season, the whole playoffs,” Dobeš said. “So we are a super underdog right now. We’ll got to Carolina and try to win Game 5, come back and try to win (Game 6), and hopefully we’ll get to Game 7.”

Carolina, meanwhile, wants to end things at home Friday night.

“When you have them right on the edge, you want to push them off,” Stankoven said. “You don’t want to let them hang around. That fourth game to win is always the toughest. So, we’re going to expect their best, and we’re going to have to come ready to play.”

Hurricanes dominate first with three quick goals

For the first time in this series, the goals came in a big ol’ bunch for Carolina, as all three of the Hurricanes’ top centers tallied in a span of just 2:47 late in the first for their first three-goal lead of the series.

Aho scored first on their second power play of the game, a questionable hooking call on Zack Bolduc that the Canes’ top unit made very short work of via a cross-ice one-timer with five minutes left in the opening frame.

Staal made it 2-0 a minute and change later by winning a big boy net-front battle with Josh Anderson to pound in his second of the playoffs and continue his line’s dominance over the Canadiens.

Then Stankoven recorded his first point of the series by capping a two-on-one off a pass from Blake as the wheels started to come off for Montreal. Only 17:46 into the game, it was 3-0 — and the Canadiens had a massive hole to dig out of. — James Mirtle, senior NHL writer

Where was the Canadiens’ adjustment to Hurricanes’ forecheck?

The Canadiens registered their first shot on goal at 8:07 of the first period, by which point the Hurricanes already had six.

Going back to the third period of Game 3, from the moment Noah Dobson was credited with a shot on goal at 10:06, the Canadiens registered one shot on goal in 32:57 of game time, or more than half a game’s worth.

But perhaps more important than the lack of shots in the first eight minutes is that, at least by our rudimentary count, the Canadiens already had seven failed zone exits by that point. That was really the story of the opening period for the home team, and has been the story of the series over the past three games.

The Canadiens’ inability to clear the puck from their own zone under the relentless Hurricanes forecheck was going to be the biggest adjustment we would see in Game 4. Or so we thought.

And nowhere was it more evident than on the Hurricanes’ second goal. It would be easy to look at Anderson’s inability to tie up Staal in front of the net as the main reason for that goal, but while the culprit would be correct, the moment would not be. That came several seconds earlier, when Anderson had the puck on his stick not far from the blue line in the defensive zone and took a moment to think about what to do with it. In that moment, the Hurricanes took the puck off his stick and went back to work in the offensive zone.

And just like that, the Canadiens’ issues in this series were summed up in one play, with a nice, pretty bow on it. — Arpon Basu, senior Canadiens writer

Score effects or a positive line shuffle?

Score effects are most definitely a real thing. A team that is up three goals will play differently, and so will a team that is down three goals.

When St. Louis shuffled all four of his forward lines to start the second period, however, already down 3-0, and the Canadiens suddenly became far more dangerous, it was hard not to wonder why he began the game with the same line combinations as in the previous three games.

Considering the Canadiens put 10 shots on goal in the second period alone after putting up 13 and 12 in the previous two games, which each went to overtime, it is a fair question.

The speed of Alex Newhook next to Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield gave that line a jolt, Bolduc playing with Phillip Danault and Anderson created a fast, physical line, and Juraj Slafkovský had a lot of success in the middle of the regular season playing left wing on a line with Ivan Demidov.

Perhaps the changes will bode well in Game 5 with their season on the line, but maybe Game 4 would have been different had the Canadiens either started this way or in any different way from the previous two games, which went so poorly for them.

The bump from the changes, however, did not even carry over to the third period, let alone Game 5.

“I felt like we got a jolt, I liked our second, I felt like we had to kill big penalties, too, and it gave us momentum,” St. Louis said of the changes. “Unfortunately we just couldn’t execute in the third.”

With a little under seven minutes left in regulation and the Canadiens sitting on zero shots on goal in the period, the Bell Centre fans briefly chanted “Shoot the puck! Shoot the puck!” which, it should be clear, is not a great look, especially if this was the Canadiens’ final home game of the season.

“It’s not fun to hear that,” St. Louis said. “But they’re not wrong.”

— Basu

Miller time

Wednesday wasn’t the first postseason game in which K’Andre Miller was the most attention-grabbing Hurricanes defenseman, but it might’ve been his best.

Miller earned a primary assist on Staal’s goal, Carolina’s second of the first period, by carrying the puck from the blue line to the goal line, going wide on Danault. That drew Dobeš’ attention away from the traffic in the crease — and Miller, with plenty of space between himself and Danault, banked the puck off Staal’s skate back toward the Canadiens’ net.

It was a slick play, the sort of thing Miller does with some degree of regularity, and it certainly came at a crucial moment for the Hurricanes, giving them a two-goal lead and setting them up to tighten the screws on Montreal. Miller’s shift-in, shift-out performance has been a bigger deal, though; his skating and reach are elite, and he’s used both to regularly erase scoring chances by all three of Carolina’s postseason opponents, including several by Montreal throughout Game 4. Carolina, of course, acquired him from the New York Rangers in the offseason for first- and second-round picks and defenseman Scott Morrow.

Miller, 26, flashed potential with the Rangers but also struggled at times, playing for three coaching staffs and frequently being deployed in matchup minutes with mismatched partners. In him, the Hurricanes saw a player who could thrive in their system, and he’s done just that.

“He kind of does it all,” Aho said. “He skates really well. He has really good offensive instincts, as well. He’s been a great player for us.”

— Sean Gentille, senior NHL writer