William Carrier scored the tiebreaking goal with 5:08 left in the third period Thursday night for the Carolina Hurricanes, who squandered a pair of leads before beating the New York Islanders 5-3 in Elmont, N.Y.
Carrier backhanded home the rebound of a shot by Andrei Svechnikov. The Hurricanes lost leads of 2-0 and 3-2 before winning for the fifth time in six games (5-1-0).
Logan Stankoven and Jesperi Kotkaniemi scored early in the first period and Svechnikov scored in the second for Carolina, which leads the NHL with 13 wins and 28 points. Jalen Chatfield added an empty-netter with 49.3 seconds left.
Goalie Brandon Bussi made 24 saves, including a point-blank stop of Bo Horvat seconds before Chatfield’s goal.
Mitchell Chaffee, Brayden Schenn and Victor Eklund scored in the second for the Islanders, who have lost two straight. Goalie Semyon Varlamov recorded 34 saves.
The Hurricanes raced out to an early 2-0 lead by scoring on two of their first three shots.
Stankoven scored on the Hurricanes’ first shot 57 seconds after faceoff, when he took a drop pass from Jackson Blake — who was surrounded by the Islanders’ Anthony Duclair, Jean-Gabriel Pageau and Tony DeAngelo — and beat Varlamov from the left faceoff circle.
The Hurricanes doubled their lead at the 3:20 mark, when Jordan Martinook’s pass into the crease glanced off Kotkaniemi’s extended stick and fluttered past Varlamov.
The Islanders began their comeback bid by scoring twice within a span of 2:04 early in the second. Chaffee raised his stick and got a piece of Matthew Schaefer’s shot from the top of the slot at the 3:40 mark before Schenn scored on a wraparound following a turnover by Carolina defenseman Juuso Valimaki.
The Hurricanes snapped the tie just one minute later when Svechnikov’s shot glanced off Varlamov’s leg before the right winger backhanded home the rebound in the crease.
Eklund tied the score again with 2:47 left in the period when his shot from the right slot sailed past Bussi.