Frederik Andersen returned to the net and stopped 20 shots for his fifth career playoff shutout, Logan Stankoven got the only goal Carolina needed and the Hurricanes won their first Eastern Conference finals game in 20 years by beating the Florida Panthers 3-0 on Monday night to stave off elimination.

Sebastian Aho and Jordan Staal got empty-netters to seal it for the Hurricanes. They had dropped 15 consecutive East finals games, getting swept in 2009, 2019 and 2023, then dropping the first three games of this matchup.

No sweep this time, however. Carolina still trails the series 3-1, but that looks a whole lot better than 3-0 does. The Hurricanes kept the Panthers’ offense completely bottled up for much of the game, limiting the reigning Stanley Cup champions to 12 shots through two periods.

Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 25 shots for Florida, which played without the injured Sam Reinhart, Niko Mikkola and A.J. Greer.

Game 5 is Wednesday in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Stankoven gave Carolina its first lead of the series midway through the second period when he took a cross-ice diagonal pass from Alexander Nikishin at the blue line and skated in alone on Bobrovsky. He beat the Florida goalie over the right shoulder for the 1-0 lead.

The Hurricanes switched starting goalies again for Game 4, going back to Andersen. He started Games 1 and 2, then watched Game 3 when Carolina went with Pyotr Kochetkov.

Stars need top players to be more productive: Mikko Rantanen and Mikael Granlund scored seven of the Dallas Stars’ 13 goals in the second round to move on to the Western Conference final against the Edmonton Oilers, yet that lopsided production was also a red flag.

While Tyler Seguin has scored twice, Wyatt Johnston, Evgenii Dadonov, Matt Duchene and Jamie Benn have one goal between them, and now the Stars find themselves down two games to one in the best-of-seven series going into today’s Game 4. They went nearly 100 minutes without scoring on Edmonton’s Stuart Skinner from Games 1 through 3 and went another 24 minutes without a goal on the way to a 6-1 loss Sunday.

With the status of injured center Roope Hintz uncertain after getting slashed in Game 2 and with Rantanen’s playoff-opening magic seemingly wearing off, Dallas needs more offense from its top players to avoid getting pushed to the brink of elimination.