Winners, losers from Thursday's Stanley Cup playoffs: Hurricanes push Flyers to brink

There was only one Stanley Cup Playoff game on Thursday night, and it was a pivotal one in the Eastern Conference. The Carolina Hurricanes remained perfect this postseason with a 4-1 win over the Philadelphia Flyers, not only giving them a 3-0 series lead, but also giving them their seventh consecutive win to open this year's playoffs. 

They can clinch the series and punch their ticket to the Eastern Conference Final on Saturday.

Let's take a look at some winners and losers from Thursday's game.

Thursday's winners

Carolina's special teams. Carolina is the better team on paper, and it is the better team during 5-on-5 play. But what is really starting to tip this series is the fact the Hurricanes are also taking over the special teams game. 

They scored two power-play goals on Thursday (Jordan Staal and Andrei Svechnikov) and a shorthanded goal to get the win.

The shorthanded goal from Jalen Chatfield was especially impactful. It came just after Taylor Hall had a potential five-minute major reduced to a two-minute minor, and broke what had been a 1-1 tie. 

That sequence was a turning point in the game and completely sucked the energy out of the building.

It may have been a turning point in the series, as well. 

Andrei Svechnikov, Carolina Hurricanes. Svechnikov entered Thursday's game in an offensive funk, recording just one assist in the first six playoff games and scoring on zero of his first 20 shots on goal.

He finally broke out of that with a third-period power-play goal that just snuck in past the skate of Flyers goalie Dan Vladar. 

His lack of scoring has not been a problem so far, and if he starts to get going that is going to make an already outstanding team even better. That is bad news for the remaining teams in the playoffs. 

Jaccob Slavin's defense. Slavin is one of the most respected defensive players in the NHL and he showed why in the first period when he took away a potential game-tying goal.