RALEIGH, N.C. — The Carolina Hurricanes turned their last stand into a season-extending victory. Incredibly, it was the struggling power play that got them there.

Brady Skjei scored on the power play with 3:11 left to help the Hurricanes beat the New York Rangers 4-3 on Saturday night, staving off a sweep by winning Game 4 of the second-round playoff series.

Skjei’s shot from the the point came off a feed from Teuvo Teravainen, with the puck zipping past Igor Shesterkin to catch the upper-right corner of the goal and bang into the net. That was Carolina’s first goal with the man advantage in 17 tries in the series, and it finally pushed Carolina ahead for good on a night when the Hurricanes squandered a two-goal lead.

No matter, though. The Hurricanes survived to fight another day in the NHL playoffs.

“I don’t care,” coach Rod Brind’Amour said of whether there was extra significance to getting the winner with the man advantage. “Not tonight. We’ve just got to get Ws at this time of year.”

The Rangers get another closeout chance Monday night with the 3-1 lead when the series returns to Madison Square Garden for Game 5.

Evgeny Kuznetsov, Stefan Noesen and Sebastian Aho each scored for Carolina, while Frederik Andersen finished with 22 saves as the Hurricanes try to become the fifth team to rally from a 3-0 deficit to win a playoff series and first since 2014.

Everything started with Carolina showing plenty of jump in the first period, running out to 2-0 and 3-1 leads to build momentum.

“Obviously we played a lot of aggression,” said Aho, who finished a feed from Jake Guentzel from near the slot for the 3-1 lead with 4:31 left in the first period. “We kind of did what we needed to do. That was a strong start. We want to do that again (in Game 5).”

The Hurricanes tweaked their power-play unit to put Skjei on the top group. And roughly 30 seconds after a tripping penalty by Ryan Lindgren, Skjei converted the winner to send Teravainen and Aho rushing over to hug him and have a tense home crowd roaring in gleeful relief, even if Skjei felt “definitely celebration” instead.

“I feel like going into every game, you try to feel confident and feel you can be the guy to do it,” Skjei said. “Obviously it doesn’t happen every night or that often. But that’s kind of our mindset going forward here, just win the day.”

Will Cuylle, Barclay Goodrow and Alexis Lafreniere scored for the Rangers, while Shesterkin finished with 27 saves.

“It’s tough, we dug ourselves a hole early,” Rangers coach Peter Laviolette said. “I don’t think it was because we weren’t ready to play. … We’ve got to come out a little bit sharper than that.

“We were competing, we were working, we were trying to do our job offensively. But there’s some things defensively that I thought we could’ve been a little bit better in the first period.”

New York had won their first seven playoff games after sweeping Washington in Round 1 and taking the first three of this series, and had a chance to become the first team to reach 8-0 in a postseason since Edmonton won its first nine games on the way to claiming the Stanley Cup in 1985.

Lafreniere had the Rangers within reach of that when he capitalized on a mistake by Andersen, who let his left skate extend past the post as Lafreniere skated in on the right side. As he skated toward the boards, Lafreniere bounced the puck off Andersen’s left hip, then into the net for the 3-3 tie at 2:04 of the third period that deflated the home crowd.

The series began with the potential for heavy drama considering the Metropolitan Division-winning Rangers also won the Presidents’ Trophy as the league’s top regular-season team, while the Hurricanes — in the playoffs for the sixth straight season — finished three points behind.

The tight finishes have been there with the Rangers winning 4-3 in both Game 1 and 2 — the latter in double overtime — and then taking Game 3 in Raleigh on Artemi Panarin’s OT score for the 3-2 win. But the Rangers had been winning the special-teams battle in a landslide, outscoring the Hurricanes 5-0 with four power-play goals and a shorthanded score while Carolina’s No. 2-ranked regular-season power play entered Saturday at 0 for 15 in the series.

Carolina came up empty on its first power play, but Skjei finally gave the Hurricanes a desperately needed breakthrough.

“I thought the penalty kill was still good,” Laviolette said. “They took a shot from the point, he hammered it, it had eyes. It was a tough corner shot, traffic in front of the net. There was a lot going on there.”

PRAGUE — Columbus Blue Jackets star Johnny Gaudreau had a goal and an assist, and the United States rebounded from a 5-2 loss to Sweden by routing last year’s runner-up Germany 6-1 at the ice hockey world championship on Saturday.

Michael Kesselring had a goal and an assist, and captain Brady Tkachuk, Luke Hughes, Trevor Zegras and Michael Eyssimont added goals in a Group B game in Ostrava.

Goaltender Alex Lyon stopped all 14 German shots he faced before he was substituted for Trey Augustine 3:27 into the middle period because of an injury. Augustine made 11 saves.

Tkachuk put the Americans up 1-0 by using his stick to deflect in a shot from the point by Kesselring. Defenseman Kesselring made it 2-0 on a breakaway.

Gaudreau, who had an assist in 23 minutes of action in the loss to Sweden, stretched the lead midway through the second period on a power play. Yasin Ehliz scored the lone goal for Germany then Hughes made it 4-1 with three seconds remaining in the frame.

Zegras added another from a power play in the final period and Eyssimont finished off the rout.

In Group A in Prague, Connor Bedard scored twice and Canada opened its title defense by beating newcomer Britain 4-2.

Bedard, 18, coming off a great rookie season with the Chicago Blackhawks, netted twice in a four-minute span of the second period to put the Group A game in Prague out of reach.

Canada had to rally from a goal down despite outshooting Britain 12-3 in the opening period and 34-15 overall.

Liam Kirk put Britain 1-0 ahead on a power play eight minutes into the game, but the lead lasted just 30 seconds as Michael Bunting found the back of the net from the point.

Brandon Hagel put the defending champions ahead 5:45 into the second period with a shot high into the roof of the net.

Then it was Bedard’s turn.

The teenager beat goaltender Jackson Whistle (30 saves) midway through the frame for his first goal at the senior worlds. He made it 4-1 after Nick Paul fed him with a perfect pass.

Ben O’Connor scored in the third period for Britain.

Also in Group A, the host Czech Republic came back from 3-1 down to overcome Norway 6-3 for the second straight win, while Denmark cruised past Austria 5-1.

In Ostrava, Kazakhstan defeated France 3-1 in their opening Group B game.

In another Group B match, last year’s bronze medalist Latvia had to dig deep to overcome another newcomer in the top division, Poland, 5-4 in overtime. Latvia captain Kaspars Daugavins scored the winner with 1:31 remaining.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

BOSTON — Brad Marchand is day-to-day with an upper-body injury after a collision with Florida Panthers forward Sam Bennett in Game 3 that the Boston Bruins said might have crossed the line.

The Bruins captain’s status for Game 4 on Sunday is uncertain. He didn’t practice with the team Saturday. Marchand is the Bruins’ leading scorer in the playoffs with 10 points in 10 games (3 goals, 7 assists).

The Panthers lead the series 2-1 after a 6-2 victory in Boston on Friday night.

Some on social media said a slow-motion replay shows Bennett making contact with Marchand’s head using his right glove as the Boston winger went for a check. Andrew Raycroft, a former NHL goaltender who covers the Bruins for NESN, called it “a sucker punch, not a reverse hit.”

A source told ESPN that the NHL department of player safety will not discipline Bennett for the play, which did not receive a penalty from on-ice officials.

Bruins coach Jim Montgomery didn’t see the incident in real time but said “having seen [the replay], there’s a history there with Bennett. He’s a good, hard player, but there’s clearly evidence of what went on. People can say it wasn’t intentional. We have our view of it.”

Montgomery said the history with Bennett isn’t with Marchand in particular but in delivering that kind of blow on previous hits.

In the Panthers’ series against the Toronto Maple Leafs last season, for example, Bennett’s right glove made contact with the face of forward Matthew Knies before Bennett slammed Knies to the ice. Knies was concussed on the play, and some said Bennett had delivered a sneaky punch to the Toronto rookie.

Florida coach Paul Maurice said he didn’t believe Bennett punched Marchand.

“No, and I don’t think most of you would’ve either,” he said Saturday. “It was just a collision. In a perfect world, every team has everybody healthy. Nobody likes to see him get hurt.”

Bennett returned to the Florida lineup for the first time since Game 2 of the first round against the Tampa Bay Lightning. He played 12:43 and assisted on Vladimir Tarasenko‘s power-play goal that gave the Panthers a 2-0 lead.

“He hits hard. He’s thick and a really tough guy. He knows how to time it,” Panthers winger Carter Verhaeghe said. “It’s a huge skill how to time hits like that and get guys like that. There’s very few guys in the league like him that can do that and that have the skill set that he has.”

Marchand skated eight shifts in the first period and seven in the second period, amassing 10:51 in total ice time before departing. He didn’t register a shot on goal and had one shot attempt.

“You never want to see someone go down and not be able to come back, especially a guy who’s your leader and your best player. But that’s an opportunity for guys to step up, and we can do that,” said Boston center Charlie Coyle, who noted that the Maple Leafs rallied against the Bruins in the first round after losing star Auston Matthews to an upper-body injury.

“I think you’ll see guys take on more responsibility and rise to that occasion,” Coyle said. “We want to play for guys who are out of the lineup and we wish can be in there. We play for each other, and that’s something we’re going to do [Sunday].”