The resurgent veteran powered home a gritty overtime winner to erase an early deficit and push his team to a 2-0 series lead.
Who'd have thought that a 34-year-old winger who started the year on the fourth line would be the Carolina Hurricanes playoff MVP?
Well, Taylor Hall has always been a great player, I mean, he was the first overall selection in 2010 and won the Hart Trophy in 2018, but at this point in his career, many weren't sure what he had left in the tank.
However, ever since the midway part of this season, Hall has been steadily turning back the clock and now he's looking like legitimately one of the best players in the entire league, having gotten a point in every single game this postseason.
And on Monday night at Lenovo Center in Game 2 of the Hurricanes' second round series against the Philadelphia Flyers, Hall was once again playing the role of hero as he drove home the overtime game winner.
"The one thing about him that we know is he wants to make a difference," said Carolina coach Rod Brind'Amour. "And that goal, to me, kind of sums it up.
"We talked about it before the playoffs. His impact on the team and maybe it's his buy-in or whatever, but the change in his game, he wants to win. So he's doing whatever he has to do to help the team. He's been just a great player for us."
The Hurricanes had battled back from an early 2-0 deficit to even force overtime in the first place and even there, the Flyers looked to have the edge.
But after weathering Philadelphia's best push of the series, the Hurricanes found the perfect counter strike.
Sean Walker collected the puck and transitioned it through the neutral zone, before dropping it off to Hall.
Hall then used the space Walker opened up with his net-front drive, powered to the middle of the ice, shot it and then collected his own rebound to pot home the winner.
"When you score in overtime it seems like parts of your memory kind of go," Hall said. "It was a gritty goal. I didn't do a very good job of attacking tonight personally. So I got that puck and I just wanted to get to the middle of the ice as much as I could and I got a shot off and got the rebound. That was an overtime goal, for sure."
Carolina had found themselves trailing early (for the first time all postseason actually), as the Flyers converted on their first power play opportunity following a puck over of glass penalty.
And then 39 seconds later, a blown coverage saw Sean Couturier alone in front of the net and the Philly captain made no mistake in burying a feed from below the goal line.
For the first time all postseason, the Hurricanes had their real first taste of adversity and how did they respond? Well, almost right away.
"It would obviously be nice if everything went perfectly our way the whole time, but not necessarily the way we wanted to start the game, but to watch us battle the whole night, stick to our game plan and not really falter at all is reassuring, for sure," Walker said.
The Canes got a power play chance of their own not long after and in the waning seconds of it, Jackson Blake fed a feed across to Nikolaj Ehlers and the veteran blasted it through Dan Vladar.
The deficit was down to one.
"It's always huge, but at that point it was a 2-0 game," Ehlers said on his goal. "You want to get one right back and we were able to do that. After that, it's a one-goal lead. One shot. It took us till six minutes left to get that second one. I loved every second of it. It was awesome to get my first of the playoffs, at home as well. I enjoyed that one tonight."
From there the Hurricanes really pushed the pace of play, but Philadelphia was stalwart with the lead and were giving Carolina a real tough time as they tried to break through.
The Canes were generating plenty at 5v5, but the frequency of penalties just wasn't allowing them to find consistent pressure.
And eventually, the coaching staff knew that the team needed a little spark and so they swapped Seth Jarvis and Jordan Martinook and immediately it paid off as on their first shift together, Ehlers weaved his way into the neutral and dropped a pass off to Jarvis who ripped one past Vladar for his first goal of the playoffs.
"Jeff Daniels, who helps me with the forward group, does such a good job," Brind'Amour said. "He was just like, 'It's time.' And then literally the first shift, we tie it. So I have to give him all the credit there for tapping me and saying it had been long enough. Paid dividends. Doesn't always work, but it did tonight."
"It's always nice to see one go in, especially since I've had chances and haven't been doing it," Jarvis said. "So to step up in a moment like that was huge. The line shuffling, I mean, it seems like every time with I’m with Jordo, stuff starts to go in. So hopefully that kick starts the rest of my playoffs."
The Canes had come back, but they never would have even been able to get to that point though if it wasn't for Frederik Andersen.
The Danish netminder saw two go past him just five minutes into the game, but that would be the last ones that beat him as he absolutely shut down the rest of the Flyers' chances, making 33 straight saves en route to the win.
Andersen was at his best too in overtime, where the Flyers found another gear to their game, putting up 15 shots in total.
It was thanks to his elite level of play that allowed the Hurricanes to weather the storm and eventually take the win.
"Fred's been so good the whole playoffs so far," Walker said. "We didn't start the way we wanted and we didn't really give him help there, but he shut the door. To have that confidence and know that your goalie is gonna be there. We did have some breakdowns and they had some pushes where they were getting some pretty good chances and he was there to save our ass. Unbelievable and he's really a big part of our team and all the success we've had."
Carolina now will head north for Game 3 and 4 in Philadelphia as they look to steal a road win.
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