The Montreal Canadiens pounced for four first-period goals on slow-starting Carolina — coming off the longest postseason break in more than a century — and handed the Hurricanes their first loss of the playoffs with a 6-2 victory Thursday night in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Final.

Cole Caufield and Phillip Danault scored in the opening four minutes, Alexandre Texier followed four minutes later, and Ivan Demidov finished a breakaway for a shocking 4-1 lead midway through the opening period. That came against the Eastern Conference’s top seed, which hadn’t allowed more than two goals in an 8-0 playoff start.

Juraj Slafkovksy scored twice in the third period for Montreal, the second on a late empty-netter, while Jakub Dobes had 24 saves.

The Hurricanes were the first team to sweep the first two rounds of the playoffs, since the NHL, went to a best of seven format in 1987. But that led to a lengthy break, of 11 days .

That led to the rest-versus-rust discussion about the Hurricanes, along with how well the Canadiens would pivot from those to-the-limit wins.

And outside of Seth Jarvis beating Dobes just 33 seconds in, the Canadiens answered that question resoundingly in those opening minutes to extend Carolina’s misery in this round.

Much of Carolina’s success comes from pressuring opponents in the offensive zone and minimizing chances going the other way. But Montreal effectively moved the puck out of danger against Carolina’s aggressive pressure early, setting up clean breakouts and multiple breakaway chances at Frederik Andersen. 

Danault’s goal was a full-speed breakaway right up the middle off a feed from Alexandre Carrier, while Demidov went forehand-backhand-forehand to beat Andersen for the 4-1 lead with 8:28 left in the first.

Eric Robinson also scored for Carolina, which is in the Eastern final for the third time in four years and fourth time in the current eight-season playoff run under Rod Brind’Amour. But the Hurricanes are now 1-13 in those games, including sweeps against Boston in 2019 and Florida in 2023.