Carolina Hurricanes sweep Ottawa Senators in NHL playoffs with 4-2 win

The Ottawa Senators’ season has come to a disappoint end. The Carolina Hurricanes picked up a 4-2 win in Game 4 of the first round of the NHL playoffs, completing the sweep on Ottawa ice.

Carolina struck first in the second period, with a goal from Taylor Hall, before Ottawa evened things up behind Drake Batherson’s power-play goal. But in the third, the Hurricanes pulled just out of the Senators’ reach, first scoring on a power play halfway through the period and then, with time winding down, getting an empty-net goal from Sebastian Aho to go up 3-1.

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With under two minutes remaining, Ottawa snatched one back, with Dylan Cozens finding the net. But moments later, Aho picked up his second empty net goal of the game to ice the victory.

The victory capped off a chippy playoff series, with the two teams breaking into fights from the very start of the series. And on Saturday, there was plenty more fighting, with a big scrum erupting halfway through the second period that ended with Brady Tkachuk and Nicolas Deslauriers getting sent to the penalty box.

Still, the fighting didn’t do much to changes the outcome of the series for Ottawa, who lost two games to the Hurricanes in Raleigh (including a double overtime thriller) before falling 2-1 to the team at home on Thursday. The Senators even went as far as to "banish” a fan blamed for the team’s poor luck to Asia in order to turn things around. Apparently, they didn’t send him far away enough.

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Carolina becomes the first team to advance to the next round of the NHL playoffs, though the Philadelphia Flyers are also in position to sweep the Pittsburgh Penguins later on Saturday. The Hurricanes will face the winner of that series (likely Philadelphia, though anything can happen) in Round 2.