About Last Night: A perfect start

Well, that was quite the win for the Carolina Hurricanes.

The Canes opened up their second-round series with the New Jersey Devils in dominant fashion Wednesday night, winning 5-1 while forcing a Devils’ goaltender switch.

For Carolina, things really couldn’t have gone much better. They dominated from start to finish, looking the much better team after getting a few extra days to freshen up.

About last night:

The Perfect Start

It’s not just that the Hurricanes got off to a hot start Wednesday night, it’s the fact that they got off to a near-perfect start against the Devils.

At the end of the first period, the Hurricanes had two goals. The Devils had one shot on goal, and it was more of a dump than even a shot. The Canes utterly dominated the first period, outscoring the Devils 2-0, outshooting them 10-1 and had a staggering 80.56 CF%.

In no other terms, the Canes ran the Devils out of the building in the first period and never looked back. Brett Pesce got things started to make it 1-0, and then Seth Jarvis got the net and made it 2-0.

The utterly dominant first period set the tone for the entire game, as the Canes never even looked threatened by the Devils in the comprehensive win, one of the most impressive of the Hurricanes’ last five years of playoff games.

Frederik Andersen doing the thing, again

Frederik Andersen is ready for playoff hockey, folks.

The Canes’ goaltender — who has spent most of the last two years as the number one when not injured — made his first postseason appearance for the Hurricanes to end the Islanders series, stopping 33 of 34 shots saved in the win.

And Wednesday night, though not tested a ton, Andersen was excellent again. He made 17 saves on 18 shots faced, bringing his postseason save percentage to .962 while keeping that GAA at 1.00. Andersen has been awesome, to say the least. The one goal he let up Wednesday was a filthy move from Nathan Bastian, who got in behind completely alone.

For the Canes, there’s a luxury in having both Andersen and Raanta playing strong hockey here in the postseason. And while Raanta was solid in the opening series, there’s been nothing in Andersen’s last two games that should suggest a change.

That kind of competition in the playoffs is good.