RALEIGH, N.C. _ For the Carolina Hurricanes, the NHL playoff line has been a hurdle they could not pass.
Until Saturday.
The Canes topped the Dallas Stars, 3-0, at PNC Arena as Petr Mrazek was unshakeable in net and Justin Williams, Brock McGinn and Micheal Ferland provided the goals. Mrazek had 33 saves in his third shutout of the season.
Williams and McGinn scored in the first period to stake the Canes (31-22-6) to a 2-0 lead and Ferland, playing his 300th career game, sealed it with a third-period power-play goal off an Andrei Svechnikov pass.
After the Pittsburgh Penguins were beaten, 5-4, Saturday afternoon by the Calgary Flames, the door was open for the Canes. Beat the Stars and the Canes would move past the Pens and into the second wild-card position in the Eastern Conference.
There's a lot of hockey still to be played _ in the Canes' case, 23 more games. But they have clawed their way up the standings since New Year's Eve, going 16-5-1 in their last 22 games.
After taking eight of 10 points in a five-game road trip, their longest of the season, the Canes returned home Friday and took a 3-1 victory over the Edmonton Oilers. Goalie Curtis McElhinney had 40 saves, Nino Niederreiter scored twice and everyone had some postgame fun with Warren Foegele's "walk-off homer" and wild celebration at "home plate" with his teammates.
As Canes coach Rod Brind'Amour put it before the Oilers game, "We're getting down to the nitty gritty but we focus pretty well on one day at time and we're still in that mode. It's going to be grind for us all the way to end but we hope to continue to be in the hunt."
In came the Stars, a team that was in playoff position in the Western Conference. In net: Anton Khudobin, another former Canes player looking to beat a former employer who traded him away and 4-0-1 in his career against Carolina.
Khudobin was rocked for five goals on 21 shots Thursday against the Tampa Bay Lightning in the Stars' 6-0 loss, needing relief from backup Landon Bow. And the Canes struck for two goals in the first as Williams and then McGinn scored.
Williams scored his 15th of the season at 5:09, ripping a shot off the rush, with Sebastian Aho and Niederreiter picking up assists _ for Niederreiter his 13th point in 13 games with the Canes.
McGinn's goal, his seventh, came moments after the winger had fanned on a one-timer from the left circle. Taking a pass from defenseman Justin Faulk in the slot, he got inside defenseman Miro Heiskanen and beat Khudobin with a backhander.
Mrazek was visibly angry in the first after he had his stick knocked out of his hands, only to have the Stars' Tyler Seguin then swat it toward the corner. The Canes' Brett Pesce then was called for a holding penalty, leaving everyone in red _ and Brind'Amour _ seeing red.
But the Canes killed off the penalty, Mrazek with a good stop on an Alexander Radulov scoring chance.
Mrazek was called for hooking Seguin in the second, maybe an act of retaliation against the talented Stars forward, but the Canes again killed off the penalty.
In one sequence late in the second, the Stars' Andrew Cogliano had Mrazek down in the crease and looking at an open net. Canes defenseman Calvin de Haan jumped in, causing Cogliano to hesitate, then shoot wide.
The Canes were active in front of Mrazek, stepping into shooting lanes and blocking shots _ Faulk had five blocks after the first two periods.
