Carrier Breaks the Deadlock as Hurricanes Outlast Islanders 5-3

For two periods and most of a third, the New York Islanders did just about everything right against the best team in hockey. They erased a two-goal deficit. They erased another lead. They turned a visit from the defending Stanley Cup champions into a street fight, and with five minutes left at UBS Arena on Thursday night, the game was tied 3-3 and the building believed.

Then William Carrier went to the net, and the Carolina Hurricanes reminded everyone why they lead the NHL.

Carrier, who had not scored all season, parked himself in front of Semyon Varlamov, screened the goaltender while Andrei Svechnikov fired, and then buried the rebound with 5:08 left in regulation. Jalen Chatfield added an empty-net goal, and Carolina walked out with a 5-3 win — its fifth in six games, its 13th victory of the season, and another night in which its depth simply wore an opponent down.

It had not been pretty. Carolina knows it. The Hurricanes led 2-0 after less than four minutes, on goals from Logan Stankoven — his team-leading 11th of the season, scored 57 seconds in — and Jesperi Kotkaniemi. Then the Islanders pushed back, the way they have all season, and twice the game slipped out of Carolina's hands. Mitchell Chaffee, scoring his first goal as an Islander, and Brayden Schenn, on a wraparound, tied it early in the second. Svechnikov restored the lead a minute later, ending a nine-game scoring drought by banking a shot off Varlamov and backhanding home the rebound. Victor Eklund answered late in the period, and it was 3-3 after two.

"I didn't love our game in Nashville, and I didn't love our game here," head coach Rod Brind'Amour said afterwards. "We're not going to play great every night, but there's a certain way that you got to play to win, and we eventually got to it tonight. It's a tough, tough league. You got to be on your toes every night or you don't win."

That is the thing about this Carolina team. It does not need to be at its best to win, because the goals come from everywhere. Carrier's was the one that mattered, but it was also a milestone for the roster as a whole — with his goal, every active forward on the Hurricanes has now scored this season. Sebastian Aho added two assists, Svechnikov and Chatfield each finished with a goal and an assist, and Brandon Bussi stopped 23 shots for his first win since October 10. Carolina has now scored 69 goals in 18 games, better than 3.8 a night, and sits at 13-3-2 with a league-leading 28 points.

The Islanders deserved better than the result, and they knew it. "We just give ourselves a chance every single night," Schenn said. "We play hard, we play the right way, we got good goaltending. I liked our game tonight. We deserved a point, probably two, and unfortunately, it didn't go our way late." Varlamov made a season-high 34 saves, several of them spectacular, and Chaffee's goal — his first in the NHL since March 2025 — capped a night when the Islanders' fourth line tilted the ice. But the night also spoiled the debut of their Fisherman Hometown Remix jerseys, and the Islanders went 0-for-4 on the power play in losing their second straight.

Carolina, meanwhile, heads home to face Chicago on Saturday, still finding ways to win on nights when its coach is not happy with the performance. That is what champions do. The rest of the league has been warned — again.