Domi steals show as Canes beat Bruins in Game 7

Every game seven has a hero.

Saturday evening in PNC Arena the Carolina Hurricanes’ hero was Max Domi, who scored two goals and had an assist in Carolina’s 3-2 win over the Boston Bruins to move the Canes to the second round and send the Bruins home for the summer.

Domi, the lone trade-deadline acquisition for the Hurricanes, played maybe his best game with the team in its biggest moment so far this season. He had a beautiful assist on Teuvo Teravainen’s game-opening goal, and then he twice bumped the Hurricanes’ advantage to two goals to help move Carolina to 6-0 all-time in game sevens since the relocation.

Antti Raanta was solid in net once again, as he stopped 26 shots in the biggest game of his NHL career so far. For the Bruins, Jeremy Swayman made 28 saves in the loss while Jake DeBrusk and David Pastrnak scored.

In a somehow lopsided but also close series of hockey, it was the home team that did end up holding serve in every single game. None of the games were particularly close, with game seven maybe the most contentious, but it was a back-and-forth seven games of hockey that showed the Canes can come back from a disappointing loss.

The first period was a very tight, very game seven period of hockey, as the teams battled for most of the frame and exchanged some penalties.

But Carolina did find the game’s first goal in the final two minutes of the opening period, as some beautiful puck movement led to the second goal of this series from Teravainen. Jaccob Slavin laced the puck towards the net where Domi made a phenomenal touch pass across to Teravainen for the goal.

The Canes got a big power play opportunity at the end of the first period, as Tony DeAngelo took a stick up high from Taylor Hall that drew blood.

And while Carolina couldn’t technically score on the four-minute man advantage, which spanned the end of the first period and beginning of the second, Domi made it 2-0 in the seconds following Hall exiting the box.

The Canes got the puck in deep and it fell out beside the goal, and an uncovered Domi came crashing in to smash it home and double the home team’s lead.

The two-goal lead didn’t last long though, as a centering pass made it’s way to DeBrusk who pushed it past Raanta.

Domi struck again later in the second period to push the lead back to two, as Teravainen slotted a beautiful pass to Domi for the goal on the rush immediately after a game-tying attempt from Boston rang the post.

The Canes locked in and held down the fort in the third period, beating Boston to pucks and grinding out hard shift after hard shift to keep the Bruins from finding any signs of life as they tried to battle back in their final 20 minutes of the season.

Pastrnak found the net with just 20.5 seconds to go and Boston’s net empty, though it was far too little far too late for Boston.

Now the Hurricanes will wait and watch game seven of Pittsburgh-New York Sunday, with the winner of that game coming to Raleigh for game one of round two at some point next week.