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RALEIGH, North Carolina (Ticker) -- The last time the Carolina Hurricanes' franchise won the first game of a playoff series, the only thing on ice in Raleigh was tea. Rod Brind'Amour and rookie Erik Cole scored 82 seconds apart in the first period and Arturs Irbe made it stand up as the Hurricanes held on for a 2-1 victory over the undermanned New Jersey Devils in the opener of the Eastern Conference quarterfinal series. It was the franchise's first Game One playoff win since 1991, when the Hartford Whalers defeated Boston, 5-2, in the Adams Division semifinals. The Bruins came back to win in six games, the sixth of nine consecutive series losses for the Whalers-Hurricanes' franchise. "It's better to be ahead than behind, obviously, but it's just one game out of seven," Brind'Amour said. "It's obviously better than we started out last season." The most recent of those setbacks was last year's six-game loss to New Jersey in the conference quarterfinals. But Carolina took the first step toward avenging that defeat by taking this contest, even if it was outplayed for the final two periods by a Devils' team that was missing stars Joe Nieuwendyk (stomach virus) and Petr Sykora (ankle). "There's no question that those guys bring goal-scoring and are good on faceoffs, but there was nothing we could do about that," Devils captain Scott Stevens said. "We worked hard with what we had, but there were times when we needed a goal-scorer tonight." Patrik Elias scored the lone goal for New Jersey, which has lost the opener in three of its last four playoff series. "I think we did a lot of good things out there," Devils defenseman Tommy Albelin said. "Then again, there were some things that we did that was not so good. One of the things that we have to fix right away is to get some traffic in front of Arturs and get some more shots." New Jersey coach Kevin Constantine thought a turning point came 3 1/2 minutes into the first period, when Irbe stopped rookie Christian Berglund on a breakaway. "You've got to save what you can," Irbe said. "I had a chance to stick my toe out and he made a really nice fake. I just got a piece of it." Less than five minutes later, Brind'Amour put Carolina in front for good with his 35th career playoff goal. Defenseman David Tanabe fired a one-timer from just inside the blue line that teammate Bates Battaglia deflected in front of the net. The rebound came to Brind'Amour, who stuffed the puck past Martin Brodeur from the right goalpost. "It was deflected in front, and that took a lot of speed off the shot," said Brodeur, who made just 15 saves. "I made the save, but Brind'Amour was right beside me." Less than two minutes later, Cole cut into the slot off the right wing and wristed a shot that got a piece of Albelin's stick and deflected between Brodeur's pads. "My first thought was just get it in deep, but then I just figured I'd give it a try," said Cole, who was fifth among rookies with 16 goals. Irbe came up big with just under eight minutes to go in the first period when he stopped defenseman Brian Rafalski's shot from close range. He also squeezed his pads midway through the second to deny Elias's backhander from the low slot. "Archie was great tonight. He really stole the game for us," Brind'Amour said. "That's something we're going to need in the playoffs, for your goaltender to be big. You don't want to rely on your goaltender that much, but when you do have him in big games, it makes a world of difference." Irbe was quick to credit his teammates. "I looked at the stats and the defensive players almost outdid me. They had 33 blocks," he said. "That says a lot about the effort our guys put forth on defense and also about the effort that the New Jersey Devils put on the ice." The Devils finally got one past the diminutive Latvian on the power play 7:31 into the third period. Elias got a pass from Rafalski at the top of the right faceoff circle and rifled a one-timer over Irbe's left shoulder. But New Jersey was just 1-for-5 with the extra man. "The units were all mixed up tonight because of the guys that were out," defenseman Scott Niedermayer said. "I think our power play did a decent job." |
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