Karl B Deblaker / AP

Carolina's Jussi Jokinen, left, celebrates after a slap shot by Dennis Seidenberg, not pictured, deflected off his skate and beat New Jersey goalie Martin Brodeur with 0.2 seconds left Tuesday. The goal enabled the Hurricanes to win 4-3.

Ward finished with 26 saves for the Hurricanes, who dominated the first two periods with their best 40 minutes of the postseason.

Of course, that wasn’t necessarily saying a whole lot. Through three games, the only time the scoreboard showed them ahead was after Tim Gleason’s slap shot in overtime won Game 2. They were getting next to nothing out of their No. 1 line and there were lingering worries that they were destined to slide into a 3-1 series hole.

But they scored twice during a 1:03 stretch — and their top line of Staal, Tuomo Ruutu and Erik Cole got it all started with its first goal of the series.

Staal put Carolina up 1-0 when he stuffed a rebound past Brodeur for his second goal of the series, and moments later, Bayda came away with a goal when he took advantage of a rare misplay by the NHL’s winningest goaltender. Brodeur stopped a shot, dropped the puck and could only watch as Scott Walker simply took it away from him before setting up Bayda in the slot.

LaRose made it 3-0 with 13½ minutes left in the second when he backhanded his rebound past Brodeur, giving him a goal in two straight games and putting the Hurricanes in charge — for a while, anyway.

“It’s kind of fitting. It seems that’s the way it’s going to go in a playoff game,” Carolina captain Rod Brind’Amour said. “It looks like you’ve got it kind of going good, but it’s never that easy. And then just because they come back and it looks like they’re going that way, you just never know how it’s going to work out. For whatever reason, we seem to make things interesting. But you know what? At the end of the day, it makes no difference.”

Notes: Devils LW Zach Parise was held without a goal for the first time in the series. He led the team with a career-high 45 goals in the regular season. ... Seidenberg, a healthy scratch the previous two games, replaced D Frantisek Kaberle in the lineup and was paired with Pitkanen, who also had two assists. ... Paul Martin has a point in all four games of the series. ... Gionta has scored in two straight games.

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