RALEIGH — Tony DeAngelo exited Sunday’s Game 4 of the Carolina Hurricanes’ first round series facing questions about whether or not he could keep his cool against Brad Marchand and the pesky Bruins.
Seth Jarvis returned to Raleigh nursing a below-the-belt injury — one caused by friendly fire from teammate Brendan Smith — that he said still had him in a lot of pain.
Both eased any doubts about whether or not they were ready for Game 5.
Jarvis became the fourth Hurricanes rookie in team history to score twice in a playoff game and DeAngelo had a goal and two assists as Carolina pushed Boston to the brink of elimination with a 5-1 win Tuesday in front of a standing-room-only crowd of 19,163 at PNC Arena.
“When we’re on our game 5-on-5, we’re very confident that we’re going to come out on top,” DeAngelo said.
The Hurricanes used dominant even-strength play, a rejuvenated power play and some luck to take a 3-2 lead in the series.
Jarvis’ first goal epitomized the cliche of “getting the bounces.”
With Carolina already up 2-0 and in the waning seconds of a power play, Sebastian Aho spun and shot from the high slot. Jarvis was knocked to the ice but both he and Boston defenseman Brandon Carlo swung at the loose puck, which hit Jake DeBrusk’s left skate then right skate and fluttered past Jeremy Swayman (33 saves) for a 3-0 lead at 15:52 of the second.
“A lot of things have to go perfect for that to even happen,” Jarvis said with a grin.
Jarvis then got to the net again for his second goal. DeAngelo’s point shot was redirected by Vincent Trocheck, and Jarvis located it behind Swayman and pushed it in for his third goal of the postseason and a 4-0 lead at 3:31 of the third.
“I don’t care,” Jarvis said of getting to the net despite his unfortunate Game 4 injury. “If I get hit again, I get hit again.”
Everyone in the Hurricanes locker room does not doubt the 20-year-old’s fight.
“He’s a feisty little guy,” DeAngelo said of Jarvis. “Man, he gets in there. He’s all over the place.”
DeAngelo has been accused of being feisty himself, but the mercurial defenseman let his play do the talking after his temper bubbled over in Game 4.
First, he helped Carolina score the opening goal for the fifth straight time in the series and eighth consecutive time this season overall.
After Andrei Svechnikov forced a turnover on the forecheck with a big hit on Boston defenseman Matt Grzelcyk, Carolina then got to work in the offensive zone.
DeAngelo walked the blue line and drew two defenders before flipping a backhand to Jaccob Slavin at the right boards. Slavin then moved to the faceoff dot and wristed a shot that trickled through Swayman’s pads to give the Hurricanes a 1-0 lead at 6:11.
DeAngelo then got a goal of his own to ignite the Hurricanes’ power play, one-timing a Teuvo Teravainen pass for his first playoff goal with the Hurricanes and a 2-0 lead at 12:17 of the first.
“He’s so fiery, so competitive that everyone knew he was gonna be coming out hot,” Jarvis said, returning a compliment to DeAngelo. “To have a game like he did was huge for us.”
The Hurricanes not only got their power play going with two goals — plus Jarvis’ first goal, which came just seconds after another penalty expired — but avoided the infractions that plagued them in Games 3 and 4 in Boston.
“Special teams are the biggest thing and in the playoffs,” said goalie Antti Raanta, “and today we won that battle.”
The Hurricanes also won the goaltender battle, with Raanta (34 saves) making several key stops early.
“The first period there were a couple rebounds,” Raanta said. “And I think as the game went on, I started to get better at controlling it like that.”
Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour credited Raanta with being a big part of keeping Boston’s top players off the board on Tuesday.
“That’s what goaltending does,” Brind’Amour said. “They’re not going to not get chances. That team is going to generate opportunities. They certainly did, and he was good.”
Notes: Aho finished with two assists to end his two-game point drought. He now has multipoint games in each of his four career playoffs games in which he was coming off two straight games without a point. … Trocheck had a late empty-net goal and finished with three points, as did Teravainen, who had three assists. … Jarvis had eight shots on goal, joining Kings defenseman Sean Durzi as the second rookie this postseason with at least that many. The last rookie with that many shots prior to these playoffs was Los Angeles’ Tanner Pearson in 2014.
