Stanley Cup Playoffs Day 22: ‘Canes sweep again, Avs finally falter

The Stanley Cup Playoffs are back, which means that for the next two months, we’ll get non-stop action as we witness 16 teams get whittled down to the one that will be crowned as the 2026 Stanley Cup champions. Here at Daily Faceoff, we’ll be keeping you in the loop on everything that happens in the playoffs, every day until the Stanley Cup is hoisted in June.

Saturday’s action featured two teams looking to maintain their perfect postseason records.

Blake sends ‘Canes to Conference Finals

After another territorially dominant playoff performance, the Carolina Hurricanes advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals thanks to forward Jackson Blake’s winner five and a half minutes into overtime against the Philadelphia Flyers. After a turnover in the neutral zone, winger Taylor Hall picked up the loose puck and gained the offensive zone before finding Blake in the high slot, whose wrist shot bounced off goaltender Dan Vladar’s glove and floated into the net to give the Hurricanes the 3-2 overtime Game 4 win.

Much like they have all playoffs, Carolina controlled most of the game, outshooting Philadelphia 40-17 and generating 66.76% of the expected goals, according to Natural Stat Trick. With their second straight four-game sweep of these playoffs, they are now the first team since the 1985 Edmonton Oilers to win their first eight postseason games.

Flyers winger Tyson Foerster opened the scoring just under eight minutes into the first period, corralling a saucer pass from center Trevor Zegras and snapping a wrist shot past goaltender Freddie Andersen.

With about seven and a half minutes left in the second period, Blake drifted a shot from the half boards that appeared to glance off Flyers defenseman Jamie Drysdale and into the net, knotting the game at 1-1.

Less than thirty seconds later, the Hurricanes thought they had taken a 2-1 lead with a Mark Jankowski goal, but it was waived off due to goaltender interference by William Carrier following a challenge by Flyers head coach Rick Tocchet.

At the tail end of the second, Philadelphia very nearly grabbed the lead on an odd-man rush, but Christian Dvorak rang one off the post.

Just over four minutes into the third period, Carolina took the 2-1 lead as Logan Stankoven scored his seventh goal of the playoffs, beating Flyers forward Alex Bump to the front of the net on a rush and slamming home a perfect Hall pass.

Less than two minutes later, Bump redeemed himself by taking a brilliant feed from Travis Konecny, after Konecny had won the puck on the forecheck, and beating Andersen from the slot to even the score at 2-2, setting the stage for Blake’s OT heroics.

While the Hurricanes will walk into the Conference Finals looking like an absolute juggernaut, the Flyers will enter the offseason hoping to build off the overall success of this season to ultimately compete with the league’s best.

Wild make statement at home

The Minnesota Wild successfully protected home ice on Saturday, beating the Colorado Avalanche 5-1 in Game 3 to make their second-round series 2-1 in favor of Colorado heading into Monday’s Game 4.

It was an important statement game for the Wild’s stars, as Kirill Kaprizov, Quinn Hughes, Brock Faber, and Matt Boldy all had multi-point games. Goaltender Jesper Wallstedt also had a critical bounce-back, as he stopped 34 of the Avalanche’s 35 shots for the win after giving up eight goals in Game 1 and sitting out of Game 2.

Kaprizov opened the scoring with just under five minutes to go in the first period, walking down the middle of the offensive zone and beating Colorado goaltender Scott Wedgewood on the forehand.

About a minute and a half later, Hughes used his elite skating on a 4-on-3 power play to free himself in the high slot and beat Wedgewood to the blocker side to give Minnesota the 2-0 lead.

Ryan Hartman’s power play goal early in the second period, batted on the backhand out of midair after Mats Zuccarello’s point shot got deflected, gave the Wild a 3-0 lead and chased Wedgewood from the game.

With just under seven minutes left in the second, Colorado got on the board thanks to Nathan MacKinnon’s power play goal, who tapped the puck into an empty net after Minnesota defenseman Daemon Hunt’s cross-check of Colorado forward Gabe Landeskog caused a domino effect that wiped Wallstedt out of the play.

Just 20 seconds later, however, the Wild regained their three-goal lead after a rebound from a Vladimir Tarasenko shot bounced off of Faber and past replacement goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood.

Matt Boldy’s empty-netter with 3.3 second left put the icing on the cake for Minnesota, as they’ll now look to even the series in Game 4 before it heads back to Colorado.