Carolina Hurricanes will strive to set a home victory for home victory on Sunday in their collision against the Atlantic divisional leader Toronto Maple Leafs at Raleigh, NC
The Hurricanes (47-27-5, 99 points) tied the Lag record of 31 home victory set during the 2005-06 season on Saturday afternoon when they eliminated the New York Rangers from the playoffs with a 7-3 victory.
Maple Leafs (49-26-4, 102 points) also has an incentive to win. They have a four-point lead over second place Tampa Bay Lightning after a 1-0 home overtime victory over the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday night.
The hurricanes finished a four-game losing line (0-3-1) on Saturday and will end up in second place in the Metropolitan Division, giving them home-ice advantage against the New Jersey Devils in the first round of the playoffs.
Hurricane’s coach Rod Brind’amour was pleased that his top player claimed on Saturday. Seth Jarvis had one goal and two assists, Captain Jordan Staal and Jackson Blake had one of each, and Sebastian Aho put up a couple of speeches.
“That’s how it has to happen,” said Brind’amour. “You’re talking about your best guys, I thought the line (Jarvis, Aho and Blake) was really good. But everyone had a hand in it.”
Aho said: “We obviously couldn’t win from late, so it was good to get back on track. Especially how we started the game was good and took over there.”
Hurricanes forward William Carrier returned after missing 39 games with a lower bodily injury. In his first game since January 4, he logged 10:48 of ice age and had an assist.
Hurricanes and Maple Leafs have shared two matches this season, each win at Hemis.
Maple Leafs has dressed home-ice advantage for the first round of the playoffs.
“It’s huge,” Toronto said forward Max Domi. “Every time you can lock it, it is massive. Who we will play, it will be a heck of a battle in the first round. Hopefully our fans are ready to go because we will be safe.”
Toronto played briefly on Saturday and went with five defenders and 12 ahead. Defender Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Jake McCabe were not available due to unveiled injuries.
Toronto coach Craig Berube said that defender Dakota Mermis will be recalled from Toronto Marlies in the American Hockey League and will play on Sunday.
“We talked about just playing really good defense, tight, and I thought our team did,” Berube said. “Helped our defense. We didn’t spend much time in our defensive zone, nothing outside the rush and forward did a really good job to get over people tonight and our defense was really good, I thought. We talked about it from the morning and how we need to play this game tonight and protect our defense and not have extended zone time.”
Forward Mitchell Marner, who made the overtime goal on Saturday, was impressed by how his team responded by allowing only 15 shots on goal. Marner took occasional shift in defense.
“We really stopped patience with our game,” Marner said. “Our D, when we really needed them, they were impassable to us. Some big key blocks, some key sticks. As a group we undertook to play defense-first. It’s something you are happy to see.”
The overtime goal was Marner’s third this season and the seventh of his career.
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