RALEIGH, N.C. — Rod Brind’Amour saw Monday night coming.

“All these games we’ve played could have gone the other way,” the Carolina Hurricanes coach said between Game 1 against the Philadelphia Flyers, a 3-0 win that pushed his team to 5-0 in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and Game 2.

“A bounce here or there, and now all of a sudden it looks different. We’re always chasing the perfect game. I have yet to see it. There’s a lot to get better at and we’re going to have to, because we know that those bounces are going to go the other way at some point.”

“Some point” nearly came in the Hurricanes’ 3-2 win in Game 2, on a Monday night marked by an outstanding performance from Flyers goaltender Dan Vladar and a series of wasted second-period opportunities by Carolina. But Brind’Amour’s team escaped in the end, earning a 2-0 series lead after Taylor Hall’s game-winning goal in overtime.

Carolina forward Seth Jarvis tied the game at 2-2, 11:21 into the third period, on a snap shot past Vladar set up by some knifing puck-carrying and a subsequent drop pass from Nikolaj Ehlers.

Game 2 wasn’t just Carolina’s first come-from-behind victory of the Stanley Cup playoffs — it was the first time they trailed, thanks to a four-game sweep of the Ottawa Senators and Game 1 victory. Goalie Frederik Andersen made 34 saves, including 15 in overtime.

Defenseman Jamie Drysdale and forward Sean Couturier were the goal-scorers for the Flyers, who held the lead for 44 minutes, 37 seconds.

Game 3 is scheduled for Thursday night in Philadelphia.

Couturier leads the way

It remains fairly remarkable that this version of  Couturier is the same guy from January.

The Flyers captain’s goal came at 4:41 of the first to put his team ahead 2-0, as he battled his way to the front of the net and slipped in a pass from new linemate Carl Grundstrom. Couturier finished with a team-high four shots on goal, including a great chance with 4:01 to go when he got a step behind the Carolina defense, and won 11 of 19 draws from the faceoff circle. He also logged 37 shifts, more than any forward in the game, across 24:51 of ice time.

He’s simply in a different gear from the regular season, and has been the Flyers’ best player through two games of the second round.

Costly missed chances

For the first time in the postseason, the Hurricanes started a period while trailing their opponent, and while the Flyers’ 2-1 lead held for all 20 minutes of the second, Carolina certainly made them work for it.

Five penalties (three on Carolina, two on Philadelphia) zapped the game of any real flow, but the Hurricanes created plenty of opportunities at five-on-five and on both sets of special teams. Across all situations, Carolina out-attempted the Flyers 30-15, outshot them 15-10, won high-danger chances 11-2, and held a 2.17-0.75 edge in expected goals.

What they failed to do, though, was actually tie the game. Their three best chances came when Flyers defenseman Travis Sanheim swept out a puck that Andrei Svechkinov had slipped through Vladar’s five-hole on the power play; when Eric Robinson failed to cash in after Andersen sprung him with a stretch pass on the penalty kill; and when Mark Jankowski airmailed a 2-on-1 feed from Svechnikov at five-on-five.

In sum, it was the sort of period that often comes back to bite a team — and the sort of period that Carolina had avoided entirely in its first five postseason games.

Vladar stands tall

Vladar was always going to have to steal a game or two in this series for the Flyers to have a chance. He nearly did on Monday.

Under attack in the second period, in particular, Vladar saved all 16 of Carolina’s shots in the frame to preserve the Flyers’ 2-1 lead. He made a pair of breakaway stops on Robinson, including one shorthanded rush about five minutes into the frame. The red-hot Logan Stankoven’s wrist shot from the circle with 6:34 to go was handled by Vladar, too. He also got a little help in the frame when Svechnikov’s shot snuck through his pads only for Sanheim to swipe it away at the last moment.

Vladar, who finished with 38 saves in dropping to 4-4 on the postseason, has not allowed more than three goals in any of his eight playoff starts.

Early whistles aplenty

It’d be tempting to say that the first-period officiating on Monday night was a result of the chippiness we saw at the end of Game 1, and five penalties (three on Philadelphia, two on Carolina) are indeed a lot. Two of those, though, were no-brainer, hands-tied minors — a delay of game on Hurricanes defenseman Sean Walker, when his clear attempt hit a TV camera on its way out of play, and a too-many-men on the Flyers.

Both teams’ power-play units came into the game seemingly prepared to take what they could get (Carolina at 2-for-19, Philadelphia at 2-for-29), and both cashed in. Drysdale opened the scoring with a pinpoint shot that beat Andersen, who also set up the opportunity with a pokecheck directly into the slot. Ehlers later cut Philadelphia’s lead to 2-1 with a one-timed rocket off a cross-ice feed from Jackson Blake on a sequence that began when Flyers defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen flubbed a clearing attempt.

“We understand when we’re playing (the penalty kill) right, it looks a certain way,” Brind’Amour said Monday morning. “And it certainly was (in Game 1). ‘What have you done for me lately?’ You got to turn around and figure out how to do it again.”

Flyers finally strike in first

Sanheim said before the game that there “should be a big difference” in the way the Flyers come out for Game 2 compared to in the series-opener, when they quickly got behind and never really got into the game.

There certainly was. For the first time all postseason, the Flyers scored a first-period goal — two, in fact, to jump out to an early 2-0 lead. It also marked the first time the Hurricanes, who had been outscoring their opponents 4-0 in the first period, trailed in the playoffs.

Falling behind early was a major issue for the Flyers in the regular season, as they gave up the first goal in 50 of 82 games. They’ve now scored first in four of their eight playoff games.