RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Time was dwindling in a two-man advantage as Sebastian Aho drifted to the right side, putting himself in position for the sharp-angle finish that would erase the Carolina Hurricanes’ last deficit of the night.
Nearly a full game’s worth of action later, the Hurricanes were again pressing an advantage after a double-minor penalty when Aho delivered another one-timer, this blast closing out their playoff series against New Jersey.
It wasn’t a surprise to see Aho star as Carolina’s top-line center. But it was to see Carolina reliably producing on the power play, an area that had been one of the few shaky pieces of its past six straight years of playoff trips. Now they're set to face the Washington Capitals in the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, armed with confidence coming through production.
“Even (with) the ones that we didn’t score, we were working there and we were moving pucks and executing the plays,” Aho said after Tuesday’s double-overtime closeout of the Devils. “You’re not going to score every time, but I thought we were very dialed in on this series.”
NHL coaches love pointing out that special teams decide games, particularly with the small margins in the grinding two-month odyssey for the Cup. The Hurricanes have routinely had a penalty kill that has ranked as the league's best in the regular season (84.8%) amid their current seven-year run that includes winning at least one postseason series each time, according to Sportradar.
The power play hadn’t been nearly as reliable, including some long droughts.
Quality start
Carolina converted 6 of its 19 power-play chances in Round 1, a 31.6% rate that is tied for fifth among the 16 playoff teams through Thursday's games. That is more than double the success rate of the Hurricanes' past six playoff appearances combined.
Notably there were Aho’s two goals in the Game 5 clincher, the first deep into a 5-on-3 chance to tie the game at 4-4. The second came well into a four-minute advantage after a high-sticking penalty.
"You can tell when a power play’s clicking when everyone’s in the right spots and the puck’s moving fast," said defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere, part of Carolina’s top power-play unit. "We didn’t have the cleanest power plays, but we found a way to get pucks (in) and score goals on entries, off broken plays, off nice-looking plays. When you get the blend of that, it makes the means for a good power play.”
Throw in a kill that went 15 for 15 and Carolina has gotten it done at both ends.
“I feel good because we’re here, that’s the obvious thing,” coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “But everything starts fresh. The power play is 0 for 0, the penalty kill is 0-for."
The right fits
Over its past six playoff appearances, Carolina ranked 24th of 29 teams in power-play conversions at 14.9% (38 of 255), according to Sportradar. The Hurricanes went 11 for 98 (11.2%) in the last 31 games to close the 2021-22 season and last year went 0 for 16 to start the second round against the New York Rangers, who took a 3-0 series lead and won in six.
So far, so good in 2025.
The lineup has stabilized after Brind'Amour tinkered through roster changes, which included the January trade that added Mikko Rantanen and Taylor Hall, and deadline deals to ship Rantanen for Logan Stankoven and add Mark Jankowski.
The last five of Carolina's six power-play goals in Round 1 came from its top unit of Aho and Gostisbehere alongside forwards Seth Jarvis, Andrei Svechnikov and Jackson Blake. Stankoven’s second Game 1 score gave the second unit its own tally.
Brind’Amour and Gostisbehere both pointed to building cohesion after shifting through roster and lineup looks. To that point, the Hurricanes ranked 17th in the NHL at 21.2% (32 of 151) through the first 49 games before the Rantanen-Hall deal.
Things slid quickly from there, with Carolina converting just 5 of 58 chances (8.6%) through the 20 games that followed.
There was one brief positive indicator for the two-week stretch into early April: Carolina went 7 for 21 (33.3%) in five games to clinch another playoff berth, with Hall working on the top unit.
“When everyone’s on the same page and you know where guys are going to be and you know their tendencies, it’s obviously a lot easier to find that success on a power play," Gostisbehere said.
The next test
The challenge now is doing it against Washington, which led the Eastern Conference with 111 points and ranked fifth on the penalty kill (82%) in the regular season.
Things were tougher in the Capitals' first-round series against Montreal. They ranked ranked 13th of 16 playoff teams on the kill (5 of 15, 66.7%) through Thursday's games, but were 2 for 2 in the clinching Game 5 victory against Montreal.
“We won the special-teams battle (that night)," center Dylan Strome said, "and that was the difference maker.”
Either way, the Hurricanes goal is to just keep riding this wave.
“Once you score one goal, you feel the confidence,” Svechnikov said. “Once you score a couple of games, three games, you just hopefully are not stopping.”
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AP Hockey Writer Stephen Whyno in Washington contributed to this report.
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AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/NHL
Aaron Beard, The Associated Press
