Hurricanes rally past Islanders, earn valuable two points against potential playoff foe

A day after beating a struggling non-playoff team, the Carolina Hurricanes faced off against the New York Islanders, a team fighting hard to reach the playoffs.

The Canes battled their way to a 2-1 victory over the Islanders on Sunday at PNC Arena as they held on to their lead in the Metropolitan Division.

.Jordan Martinook’s goal 2:31 into the third period pushed the Canes in front 2-1 and was the game-winner The forward carried the puck into the zone down the left wing and beat goalie Ilya Sorokin to the blocker side for his 12th of the season.

Frederik Andersen picked up the win for the Hurricanes with 21 saves. Sorokin faced 35 shots.

Jesperi Kotkaniemi scored for the Canes in the second period to tie the score 1-1 after the Isles’ Jean-Gabriel Pageau sniped a shot for goal late in the first.

That set up a hard-played third period between the two Metro teams, who are positioned to possibly face each other in the opening round of the playoffs in a few weeks.

The Canes killed off a late third-period penalty on Sebastian Aho, who then came out of the penalty box to draw a penalty on Isles defenseman Sebastian Aho.

The Islanders, who hold the first wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference, came to Raleigh off a 5-0 road loss at Tampa Bay. Sorokin started that game and was pulled after 31 minutes, after giving up four goals, but was back in net Sunday.

The Canes shut out the Montreal Canadiens 3-0 on Saturday with Antti Raanta in net and facing 14 shots. Andersen took over Sunday as Canes coach Rod Brind’Amour said the two likely would rotate the final games of the regular season.

The Canes had won the first three games this season — the Canes’ Aho had a hat trick in the Jan.21 game. But Sunday’s game was like so many against the Islanders through the years — methodical, grinding, low scoring, everything hard earned.

The Canes outshot the Islanders 15-7 in the opening period and had 30 total attempts to New York’s 10. The Islanders blocked 11 shots in the period and Sorokin took care of the rest.

One of the Canes’ best scoring chances came shorthanded. Aho had a breakaway and tried to beat Sorokin with a deke and a backhander, but Sorokin waited Aho out and made the stop.

Pageau’s goal, his 13th, came on a top-shelf snipe from the left circle that beat Anderson.

Sorokin made several high-quality stops, then allowed Kotkaniemi’s goal on a shot that had the puck get through him on the blocker side.

Puljujarvi, from the right wing, found Kotkaniemi open coming into the right circle for the second-period goal. It was Kotkaniemi’s 15th goal of the season and the assist gave Puljujarvi his first point in 11 games with the Hurricanes since the trade from Edmonton.

Puljujarvi, fitting in well on Kotkaniemi’s line, had a good look at his first goal with the Canes later in the second, but his tight-angle shot hit the near post.

The Canes had 28 shots to the Islanders’ 14 through the first two periods and had spent more than 20 minutes in the offensive zone.