After a quiet postseason, the Canes' top line finally ignited in Game 3, delivering an overtime winner that could signal a shift for Carolina best players.
The old adage is that you're not going to go far in the playoffs if your top guys aren't producing.
However, the Carolina Hurricanes have been finding ways to win even despite an unnaturally quiet postseason from their biggest players.
But after their showing in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Final, perhaps the top line is finally starting to heat up.
The top trio of Sebastian Aho, Andrei Svechnikov and Seth Jarvis finally came through with their best game of the playoffs, scoring the overtime winner on Monday to give Carolina 2-1 series lead.
"The whole game, I felt pretty good about how we were going," said Carolina coach Rod Brind'Amour. "Those guys in particular had a lot of good chances and were around it."
Svechnikov picked off a Lane Hutson pass to set up the offensive-zone possession and then found some open space above the dots before putting a seeing-eye shot through Aho's screen in front for the goal.
"Hopefully it jumpstarts him getting on the scoresheet," Brind'Amour said on Svechnikov. "I think he's played well and been a factor, just hasn't been scoring. I mean, you're not going to advance if you don't get production out of your top guys, obviously, so it's great to see that tonight."
The Aho line had a 16-10 edge in chances, 6-2 edge in shots on goal and finished the game with around a 70% expected goals for percentage.
It was by far the best they've looked in these playoffs, which hopefully will bode well for them moving forward.
"I thought our line was better today," Aho said. "I thought we created definitely enough chances to score a couple of goals, but we just stuck with it. That's playoff hockey. You just keep on going and hopefully you break through at the end and that's exactly what happened."
"It's the most important time of my life right now, of our life as a team," Svechnikov said. "You have to get on the scoresheet somehow and I think we've been playing good as a line. We're creating a lot and today, we created lots of chances. We could have scored more than one goal, but it's just the way it goes. We know more goals are coming for us."
Before Monday, the three had combined for just a single 5v5 goal all postseason and despite only having surrendered three goals themselves, they were giving up almost double the amount of high-danger chances as they were generating and were the only line with a sub-50% expected goals for percentage.
However, as stated before, they have only surrendered three goals in total all playoffs even despite playing big minutes against tough competition as Brind'Amour has frequently used them as a matchup trio as well.
Sure, they need to be bearing down on their chances more often, but they've been a strong line for the team regardless. But if the offensive side of their game is starting to get going, then watch out.
"Those guys built the foundation of this team and they've carried us this whole season," said defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere, who also scored his first of the postseason on Monday. "It's nice to see them obviously get the results that they've been working so hard for. It's good to see those guys get results because you don't see how much work they put in."
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