I scream, you scream, Staal screams for the Hurricanes’ game-winning goal in overtime
On a night when there were a lot of screams at PNC Arena, the loudest may have belonged to Jordan Staal.
The Carolina Hurricanes captain had just scored one of the most important goals of his career, an overtime winner Tuesday that was equal parts strength and determination. He had willed his way to the front of the Nashville Predators net and somehow gotten the puck past goalie Juuse Saros at 2:03 of the OT.
Just like that, the Canes had beaten the Predators 3-2. They had taken a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven Stanley Cup playoff series.
PNC Arena was rumbling. Staal let out a primal scream and he stretched his arms wide as if to say “OK, boys, group hug” and soon was swarmed by his teammates.
“Not a lot of thoughts were going through my mind besides just wanting some bear hugs from the fellas,” Staal said.
Martin Necas scored twice for the Canes on Tuesday and his second, also timely, also critical, was a thing of style and beauty. The speedy winger swept down the right wing with the puck, around the back of the net and beat Saros with a wraparound in the third period for a 2-2 tie.
As for Staal’s score, it’s hard to explain exactly what happened. Defenseman Brett Pesce took a cross-ice pass from defenseman Jaccob Slavin at the right point and fired the puck toward the net. Saros blocked it, then took a swat at it. Staal got around the Preds’ Ryan Johansen and took a swing it and got enough of the puck to bounce it past Saros.
“I was going to the net,” Staal said. “I thought I had a step on my guy there and it went D to D and I was just trying to get a good screen. Pesc had an absolute bomb and I got a stick on it and it kind of just popped up and I started giving it a whack at it.
“Obviously, it was a great bounce. But we’re working for those, and I’m glad we got one tonight.”
It was a greasy goal, as the players like to say, and it was a great bounce. It also ended a game in which the Canes again wondered if they’d get either.
The Canes had a goal taken away in the second period when Slavin, back in the lineup after missing the past three with an injury, got off a shot that had the puck bounce off Staal’s skate and into the net. But the Preds won a coach’s challenge when, after review, it was ruled Canes forward Warren Foegele had caused goaltender interference.
There were other screams then -- Canes fans yelling and booing and chanting at the referees. The Canes appeared to lose some steam after the bad break and then were poor for the first half of the third period as the Predators hunkered down.
“I thought this game for two periods was really good,” Canes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “We were doing everything we had to do and everything was going against us. That’s what it felt like. We had one taken off the board. It was like what else can happen, but these guys stuck with it.”
Necas scored on the wrap. “Basically a solo effort,” Brind’Amour called it.
In overtime, with the teams playing 4-on-4 after a pair of penalties, Staal went to the front of the net. His intent: be just the kind of net-front nuisance for Saros that Brind’Amour claimed had been missing in the two double-overtime losses in Nashville. And he scored the big one.
“And he should have had two,” Brind’Amour said. “There’s no secret this time of year. You’re going to get one of those Necas goals every seven or eight games. They’ve had theirs. But that’s the kind of goal you’ve got to have every night. That kind of play has to be there every night, at the net, grinding it out.”
And the Staal scream?
“That’s the emotion he puts into every single thing he does,” Slavin said.
The Canes will go to Nashville for Game 6 on Thursday with a chance to wrap up the first-round Central Division series. The pressure reverts back to the Predators, who will be facing elimination.
In a season in which Staal has delivered so many times for Carolina, he delivered again with the pressure on. This night, this game, it was worth screaming about.
This story was originally published May 26, 2021 at 7:30 AM.
