Unprecedented: The NHL makes a change to the Hurricanes' overtime goal
The NHL ping-ponged the credit on Carolina's overtime winner Monday night before landing back on Andrei Svechnikov, leaving Martin St-Louis and the Canadiens stewing.
It's the first playoff overtime goal of Svechnikov's career. And the league needed three tries to officially say so.
-
The winner first went to Svechnikov. Then it got switched to Sebastian Aho. Then, somehow, it bounced back to Svechnikov.
Cory Lavalette confirmed the final call. Seth Jarvis ended up with the lone assist on the play.
-
Carolina takes a 2-1 series lead on a goal that required a league-wide spreadsheet to sort out. The Habs took the punch at home in front of a Centre Bell crowd that smelled obstruction on Jakub Dobes.
You can replay that sequence frame by frame and still walk away unsure. Bodies tangled in the blue paint, Dobes fighting to track the puck, the net jolting before the celebration started.
-
Jakub Dobes left exposed as Habs head to Game 4 down a goal they'll never get back
The goalie is 24 years old and just lost a playoff game in OT on a play half the building thought should've been waved off. That stays with a young netminder.
Svechnikov entered the night with 2 goals in 10 playoff games. Quiet by his standards. The Russian winger picked the worst possible moment, for Montreal, to find one.
Jarvis is the one piling up production for Carolina. He's at 6 points in 11 games this spring, and he's the player Rod Brind'Amour keeps leaning on when the series tightens.
Here's the part that should sting in the Habs' room. Montreal swept the regular-season series 3-0, including a 5-2 win at the Bell Centre in March.
Now they've dropped two straight in overtime by identical 3-2 scores. Same building, same heartbreak, same feeling of a game slipping through their fingers like a face-off draw lost clean.
The Canadiens went 24-15-2 at home during the regular season. Not dominant. Good enough. Not good enough on Monday.
The series is now 2-1 Carolina with the next two on a split. Game 4 is at the Bell Centre. Game 5 swings back to Raleigh.
The bigger question hovering over the room isn't who scored Monday's winner. It's whether the Canadiens can stop bleeding overtime games before this series turns into a closeout watch.
|
YESTERDAY
MAY 25, 2026
| ||||
| G | A | PTS | ||
| Shayne Gostisbehere | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Taylor Hall | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Lane Hutson | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Michael Matheson | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Andrei Svechnikov | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Jackson Blake | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Cole Caufield | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Ivan Demidov | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Jake Evans | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Mark Jankowski | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Seth Jarvis | - | 1 | 1 | |
| K'Andre Miller | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Eric Robinson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Sebastian Aho | - | - | - | |
| Frederik Andersen | - | - | - | |
| Josh Anderson | - | - | - | |
| Zachary Bolduc | - | - | - | |
| Alexandre Carrier | - | - | - | |
| William Carrier | - | - | - | |
| Jalen Chatfield | - | - | - | |
| COMPLETE STATS | ||||