NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — The New Jersey Devils were without defensemen Luke Hughes, Brenden Dillon and Johnathan Kovacevic on Sunday against the Carolina Hurricanes in Game 4 of their first-round playoff series.
The Hurricanes then lost goalie Frederik Andersen when he left at 4:19 of the second period in the Carolina's 5-2 win after he was knocked down by the Devils' Timo Meier. Officials initially announced a five-minute penalty on Meier, but waved off the penalty after a review.
Meier said the hit wasn't intentional and pointed to him being bumped by the Hurricanes' Andrei Svechnikov.
“I’m trying to get behind Svechnikov and then I’m trying to get open for passing lane, and then Svech pushed me, and, obviously, no intent there,” Meier said. “Hope he’s not injured too bad. But nothing on my side that I could have done different.”
Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour was surprised his team didn't get a power play on the play.
“If that goes in, it's 100% goalie interference,” he said. “Clearly there's contact. You're not supposed to go in there. ... He's a big guy, he can stop. It wasn't egregious, I get it.”
Pyotr Kochetkov came on for Andersen with Carolina leading 3-1 and gave up a goal to Meier 3:15 later on the second shot he faced.
The Hurricanes announced during the second intermission that Andersen would not return to the game.
“Obviously he wasn't good enough to continue, so that's not a good sign,” Brind'Amour said. “We'll know more tomorrow when he gets evaluated.”
Hughes and Dillon each missed his third straight game after suffering injuries in the series opener. Kovacevic left Game 3 when he didn’t return to the ice after the first intermission, leaving the Devils with five blue liners for the rest of the game they won 3-2 on 21-year-old defenseman Simon Nemec's goal at 2:36 of the second overtime.
Dennis Cholowski was in the lineup in Kovacevic's place for Game 4 with New Jersey trailing the best-of-seven series 2-1.
The Devils got defenseman Jonas Siegenthaler back for Game 3 after he had been out with a lower body injury since Feb. 4.
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AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/NHL
Vin A. Cherwoo, The Associated Press
