Hurricanes’ Andrei Svechnikov shares hilarious reaction to massive Game 3 win

The Carolina Hurricanes looked like an absolute wagon down the stretch in 2023-24, and nothing has changed in their Eastern Conference first-round series against the New York Islanders. Fresh off a 3-2 victory on Thursday night at UBS Arena in Long Island, the Canes have a chance to eliminate the Isles in four straight.

And although the series looks to be as good as over, Hurricanes forward Andrei Svechnikov shared an interesting review of his team’s performance in Game 3.

“We didn’t really play our way tonight, it wasn’t there,” the Russian star explained, according to the Associated Press’ Vin Cherwoo.

“But we take the win and run away.”

Svechnikov and the Hurricanes can’t yet run back to Raleigh — they still have one more game to play in New York on Saturday afternoon. But they have an excellent opportunity to be the first team to advance to the second-round of the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Carolina wasn’t the better team for most of the night in New York, getting outshot 31-22 and needing a couple of huge saves from Frederik Andersen to preserve 2-0, 2-1 and 3-2 leads. The veteran was excellent again for the Canes, but the same can’t be said for the Islanders’ netminder.

In his first start of the series, Ilya Sorokin gave up three goals on just 14 shots, and was pulled after Sebastian Aho made it 3-1 nearly halfway through the second period. Although the Islanders pressed hard in both the second and third periods, they were unable to find a way to make the series close. And that’s especially true because of Andersen’s heroics.

“Andersen made a nice save falling backward on a shot by Alexander Romanov about 6 1/2 minutes in the third period. The puck lay in the paint briefly before the goalie covered it up,” wrote Cherwoo. “Andersen made another stellar save while sitting on the ice, reaching up to grab a shot by Romanov with 5:48 left. Andersen felt he got clipped by an Islanders player and that’s why he went down on the play.”

Frederik Andersen excellent again as Hurricanes push Islanders to brink