RALEIGH, N.C. — The Carolina Hurricanes finally had beaten a red-hot goaltender for an overtime winner in the NHL playoffs, until a replay review overturned the score.
Amid the frustrated jeers of an infuriated home crowd, the Hurricanes now had to regroup and continue the grinding fight of a postseason game that appeared over only moments earlier. And that led to forward Jordan Martinook immediately standing at center ice with another chance to end it as he waited to take a penalty shot — a rarity in OT during the playoffs.
“Try having a penalty shot after all that,” Martinook quipped.
Nothing came easily for the Eastern Conference’s top seed against the Ottawa Senators in a 3-2 double-overtime win that secured a 2-0 lead in their first-round series. That was particularly true of those gut-churning few minutes when the Hurricanes thought they had secured a victory, then learned they hadn’t, then got an immediate second chance at a walk-off win, only for Martinook to be denied.
Martinook ultimately got his winner, beating Linus Ullmark from the slot at 13:53 of the second OT to finally end this one more than four hours after the puck dropped on Game 2.
“Hockey’s crazy, sports are crazy,” Martinook said. “Being able to score after that, I’ll tell my grandkids about that one, that’s for sure.”
Not that anyone around here will soon forget this one, not with the emotions — and fortunes — changing at whiplash speed.
“There’s a lot there to unwind, that’s for sure,” Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said.
The Hurricanes won the series opener 2-0, then found themselves up 2-0 in the second period of Game 2 before giving up goals to Drake Batherson and Dylan Cozens that eventually pushed the game into overtime. Ullmark had been brilliant all night on the way to 43 saves, one coming when he gloved down a hammered one-timer from Taylor Hall as the puck shifted cross-ice to his left side.
Another came in the final seconds of regulation when Ullmark got his left shoulder on Jordan Staal’s shot from the top of the crease.
That all became prologue to those few minutes when things got weird in Raleigh.
The Hurricanes appeared to break through late in the first OT, with Mark Jankowski skating in to pounce on a loose rebound and beat Ullmark on the left side with 2:42 left to send the home crowd into a frenzy. But officials reviewed the sequence and determined Staal didn’t have possession and control of the puck as he entered the zone, coming as Martinook skated through the middle across the blue line for a 1-on-1 chance on Ullmark.
“I don’t know that rule,” Staal said. “I pick up the puck, I look up where Marty is and apparently I lost control of it. And then I make a nice pass to Marty for a breakaway. I don’t really get it. … We battled through it. It is what it is.”
“It’s a weird play, you don’t see it a lot in overtime,” Senators coach Travis Green said, adding: “I felt like it was offside. I thought the refs made the right call.”
But that sequence ultimately led to a hooking penalty on Warren Foegele, meaning Martinook quickly had to pivot to taking the first OT penalty shot in a postseason game since August 2020 and only the fifth ever.
Martinook skated in on Ullmark and tried to beat him to the glove side, only for Ullmark to knock down the puck and ensure the game would continue.
Afterward, a reporter mentioned to Martinook that he had a chance to become the first player ever to end a playoff game on an OT penalty shot.
“I was trying to tell them we needed the power play, not the penalty shot,” Martinook said. “Yeah, I’ve never seen that. That’s a first.”
The Hurricanes ultimately came out on top — after the Senators nearly got their own sudden-death winner in the second overtime when Michael Amadio got an in-close shot. Frederik Andersen made the stop with his glove to deflect the puck, which kept rising and hit the crossbar before bouncing away.
Roughly 2 1/2 minutes later, Martinook buried a shot past Ullmark to finally end this one.