Ehlers’ OT goal lifts Hurricanes past Canadiens in Game 2 of Eastern Conference Final

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The Carolina Hurricanes knew they had to play more to their style to get back into the Eastern Conference Final series against Montreal.

They got that most of Saturday night for Game 2, along with a huge performance from offseason addition Nikolaj Ehlers.

Ehlers got loose up the center of the ice and popped the puck past Jakub Dobes at 3:29 of overtime to lift the Carolina Hurricanes past the Montreal Canadiens 3-2 on Saturday night to level the Eastern Conference Final at one game apiece.

Ehlers scored twice for the Eastern Conference’s top seed, the first with a highlight-reel individual effort in the second period against two Montreal defenders.

And when the game went to OT, the guy the Hurricanes landed as a sought-after free agent carried them to the finish line.

“He’s a special talent,” Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said, “and it was on full display tonight.”

The winning sequence started with a retreating Jalen Chatfield bouncing the puck back into the neutral zone to Mark Jankowski. Jankowski had a quick redirection to Ehlers entering the zone at full speed for a clean look at Dobes for the sudden winner.

“We didn’t get a second breath,” said Dobes, who had 23 saves. “It was over pretty quick.”

As the puck hit the net, that sent a tense home crowd into a relieved but jubilant roar — along with a screaming Ehlers.

“I can barely talk right now, but I was yelling pretty loudly after that OT winner,” Ehlers said.

“It was a great pass … and then just try to get some speed and get the puck off my stick as quick as possible and try to surprise the goalie,” Ehlers said. “Seeing that go in, seeing how the fans reacted was pretty cool.”

Eric Robinson also scored for Carolina, which improved to 4-0 in overtime in the playoffs — including 3-2 home wins in extra time during Game 2 in all three playoff series so far.

Carolina was facing massive pressure to regroup from Thursday’s 6-2 loss in the series opener that only magnified the team’s long-running troubles in the Eastern Final. Now the series is level as it shifts to Canada for Monday’s Game 3.

Josh Anderson scored twice for the Canadiens, the second coming at the 12:51 mark of the third period to ultimately force the overtime at 2-2.

The Canadiens won Game 1 by jumping on a Carolina team coming off an 11-day break after sweeping through the first two rounds — the longest wait to start a series in more than a century — for four goals in the opening 11 1/2 minutes. Montreal repeatedly got loose for clean breakouts and breakaways for high-danger chances against Frederik Andersen in that one.

But Carolina looked much closer to its earlier playoff form with is aggressive forecheck and defensive pressure, holding Montreal to 12 shots on goal and giving up far fewer of those quick transition chances the Canadiens kept burying in Game 1.

“It’s hard to go 200 feet and produce offense unless you execute a little bit through that pressure,” Montreal coach Martin St. Louis said. “I felt today we weren’t terrible, we just weren’t as good” as Thursday.

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AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

Aaron Beard, The Associated Press