Stankoven, Hall, Andersen help Carolina Hurricanes top the Ottawa Senators 2-0 to open NHL playoffs

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Logan Stankoven and Taylor Hall scored, and Frederik Andersen came through with a big third-period performance in net to help the Carolina Hurricanes beat the Ottawa Senators 2-0 on Saturday to open their first-round playoff series.

Carolina can take a 2-0 lead in the best-of-7 series on Monday night in Raleigh.

Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour had gone with Andersen’s veteran experience as the starter over Brandon Bussi, and it paid off for the Eastern Conference’s top seed.

“We have good options and both guys have played well and we have confidence in both guys,” Brind'Amour said. “But clearly experience I think won out, and he looked like he knew what he was doing.”

Andersen finished with 22 saves, including back-to-back stops on a third-period power play that had Ottawa buzzing with quality chances in a 1-0 game. One of those was initially ruled a tying goal on Drake Batherson's rebound attempt at the top of the crease, only for a replay review to overturn the call in showing Andersen had gloved a loose puck as it went airborne near the post and kept it from fully crossing the goal line.

Moments later, he had another when Ottawa captain Brady Tkachuk had position at the top of the crease, only for Andersen to fall backward and make the stop with his legs in a sequence that had Hurricanes fans roaring “Freddie! Freddie!”

“It's pretty mind-blowing how loud it gets and how fun it is to play here,” Andersen said.

By the final moments, Andersen and the Hurricanes were holding up against Ottawa spending most of the last 2 1/2 minutes with a 6-on-4 advantage after pulling Linus Ullmark for the extra attacker with the Senators on the power play.

It was a physical game with hard hits, little open space and chippiness throughout. It started with captains Tkachuk and Jordan Staal of Carolina locking up in an immediate fight, jawing in the moments before the opening faceoff before throwing punches, crashing into the ice and then heading to the box just 3 seconds into the game.

“We didn’t find a way to generate enough, but they’re a team also that does that to you as well,” Senators coach Travis Green said. “And I didn’t think we gave up too many grade-As (scoring chances). They were on their toes. They’ve got a real good team, they didn’t finish first for nothing.”

Stankoven got Carolina on the board early in the second period when he took a tap feed from Jackson Blake as he skated into the slot to slip the puck under Ullmark's left pad. That line struck again in the third, with Blake poking a puck loose after an Ullmark stop and sending into the crease — where Stankoven skated in to clean it up and sent the puck off Hall's skate for the 2-0 lead.

The Hurricanes are in the playoffs for the eighth straight year, reaching the Eastern Conference Final in two of the past three years and thrice in this current run that began in 2019. The Senators are in the playoffs for the second straight year after a seven-year postseason drought since a seven-game loss in the 2017 Eastern Conference Final.

Ullmark finished with 27 saves for Ottawa, which had surged since late January to secure the second wild-card spot in the East.

The Senators also had top-pair defenseman Artem Zub exit early with an undisclosed injury after taking two second-period shifts; Green didn't have an update when he spoke with reporters afterward and said the team would know more Sunday.

AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

Ottawa Senators' Brady Tkachuk, right, protests a call with an official during the second period of an Game 1 of an NHL hockey Stanley Cup first-round playoff series against the Carolina Hurricanes in Raleigh, N.C., Saturday, April 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Karl DeBlaker)

Ottawa Senators goaltender Linus Ullmark (35) looks past toward the net as Carolina Hurricanes' Logan Stankoven (22) celebrates his goal during the second period of an Game 1 of an NHL hockey Stanley Cup first-round playoff series in Raleigh, N.C., Saturday, April 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Karl DeBlaker)

Carolina Hurricanes goaltender Frederik Andersen (31) blocks a shot by Ottawa Senators' Brady Tkachuk (7) with Hurricanes' Logan Stankoven (22) nearby during the second period of an Game 1 of an NHL hockey Stanley Cup first-round playoff series in Raleigh, N.C., Saturday, April 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Karl DeBlaker)

Carolina Hurricanes celebrate a goal by Logan Stankoven (22) during the second period of an Game 1 of an NHL hockey Stanley Cup first-round playoff series against the Ottawa Senators in Raleigh, N.C., Saturday, April 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Karl DeBlaker)

LEXINGTON, Mass. (AP) — Charlie Price says he didn't learn much about the American Revolution in school. He knew about George Washington, the Battle of Bunker Hill and that the patriots won. It wasn't until he joined the Lexington Minutemen — a group of Revolutionary War reenactors — that he realized there's so much more to the story.

The Lexington Minutemen are marking the anniversary of the Battle of Lexington in Massachusetts on Saturday, as they do every year. Thousands of people — some in colonial costumes, gathered on the Lexington Green to witness the historic clash, many booing the British troops and cheering on the patriots. The battle, which marked the start of the American Revolution 251 years ago, ended with eight Americans killed and 10 wounded — the dead scattered on the grounds as the British marched off.

Among the soldiers represented there was Prince Estabrook, an enslaved man who joined his white neighbors on Lexington Green in April 19, 1775, as British troops approached. He was wounded that day but went on to serve in multiple deployments throughout the war.

“I wasn’t surprised that we didn’t know about it,” said Price, a 95-year-old Black Korean War veteran who played the role of Estabrook for 50 years. “I was surprised that there was one Black soldier out here.”

As America prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary, Estabrook and other patriots of color are being celebrated through programs nationwide that aim to tell a more complete story of the birth of the nation.

Museum exhibits, documentary films and lectures have traditionally focused on the white leaders of the American Revolution, such as Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Paul Revere.

Christopher Brown, a British Empire historian at Columbia University, said the Revolution has long been portrayed as a “simple story and a moral story that celebrates American origins and that looks to the American past in a kind of idealized version of what the present is.”

But in recent decades, “a more accurate view of the past” has emerged that showcases the diverse collection of men and women who played critical roles in the fight for freedom.

“There were Black men in the ranks who were fighting in Concord and Lexington and fought on Bunker Hill,” he said. “They knew all of the work that women were doing to support the revolutionary effort. The fact that we didn’t know that is more of a sign of our lack of curiosity and the need for greater research.”

The National Park Service estimates that by the end of the Revolution more than 5,500 patriots of color — including Black and Indigenous people — served on the colonial side, while many runaway slaves fought for the British.

“Finding this out, I was very proud,” said Jason Roomes, a descendant of three formerly enslaved men from Rhode Island, Cato, Pero and Ceasar Rome. Roomes learned in his 40s all three Black men fought in the American Revolution for the colonial side.

“Proud that my family has been here and fought for the creation of this United States,” he said.

The stories of Black patriots cannot be told without mentioning slavery, which was legal at the time in all 13 Colonies. Some Blacks who fought were enslaved and others fought in the hopes of gaining freedom. Indigenous soldiers made similar calculations, even as tribes fought for their very survival.

But despite the documented military diversity of that time, efforts to promote such stories are under pressure. The Trump administration has ordered the removal or censorship of some exhibits highlighting the history of slavery and enslaved people, the Civil Rights Movement and the mistreatment of Indigenous people.

Roger Davidson, Jr. an associate professor of history at Bowie State University, said failure to recognize that important part of history can impact communities of color today.

“If you’re not seen as having contributed to society, to the military, to any of it, then people can sort of overlook you,” Davidson said. “It plays into, and I hate to put it this way, but it plays into some people’s biases. Why should we pay any attention to you in the present day, politically, socially, economically, if you have not contributed?”

MA250 has handed out millions of dollars in grants to commemorate the battles across Massachusetts that helped lead to America's independence. Among the beneficiaries is the Black Heritage Trail in Concord that highlights the lives of Black residents in the town during the Revolution.

Museum exhibitions celebrating Black patriots have also received grants. Among those highlighted is Crispus Attucks, a sailor of African and Indigenous ancestry who died on March 5, 1770, when British troops fired on a crowd in what is known as the Boston Massacre. Another, Salem Poor, was born enslaved but purchased his freedom before fighting at Bunker Hill.

American Ancestors, a nonprofit history and heritage center in Boston that also received MA250 funding, opens its “Patriots of Color” exhibit next week, throwing a spotlight on the lives of 26 Black and Indigenous men and women who played a role in the American Revolution. They include: Prince Ames, a Black and Narragansett man from Andover, who was forced to join the Continental Army in place of his enslaver; and Paul Cuffe, a Black and Wampanoag businessman, who petitioned the Massachusetts government to reject taxation without representation.

Some of their descendants will attend the opening of the exhibition.

“By telling these lesser known stories, we want to highlight that ordinary people made a tremendous difference in the arc of the country’s history,” Ryan Woods, president and CEO of American Ancestors, said.

Records about Prince Estabrook's life are scant, but according to the National Park Service, he was likely born in the Lexington area around 1740. His father was enslaved by landowner Benjamin Estabrook, so Prince was born into slavery.

It is unclear what his life was like before he trained as a soldier in the Lexington militia. The Park Service says he was serving under the command of Colonel John Parker on April 19, 1775, when his left shoulder was struck by a musket ball. He recovered from that injury and went on to serve eight years with the militia and the Continental Army.

After the Revolution, he was granted freedom and returned to Lexington, where tax records from 1790 indicate he joined Benjamin Estabrook’s payroll as ‘a non-white freeman.’ It is unclear if he ever married, had children or owned property.

According to family records, he died in 1830, around the age of 90, and was buried in the same cemetery as Benjamin's son, Nathan, in Ashby, Massachusetts.

Price, who has handed reenactment duties to a younger colleague but still attends the early morning reenactment every year, says it is important to know about the soldier's life.

“Keep the story alive to make sure that everybody knows, everybody that we can get in touch with, everybody knows that Prince Estabrook was here,” Price said. “He was a viable person. He did his role, he did his part in fighting for the country.”

British red coat soldiers fire on the colonial minute men during the historic re-enactment of the Battle of Lexington, Saturday, April 18, 2026, in Lexington, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

A British red coat soldier, at left, stabs a colonial minute man with a bayonet during a historic re-enactment of the Battle of Lexington, Saturday, April 18, 2026, in Lexington, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Colonial minute man Charlie Price, 95, takes a perch in a window of the Buckman Tavern prior to a historic re-enactment of the Battle of Lexington, Saturday, April 18, 2026, in Lexington, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Colonial minute men muster inside the Buckman Tavern prior to a historic re-enactment of the Battle of Lexington, Saturday, April 18, 2026, in Lexington, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

British red coat soldiers march past a fallen colonial minute man during the historic re-enactment of the Battle of Lexington, Saturday, April 18, 2026, in Lexington, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

A memorial for enslaved Minuteman Prince Estabrook, which features an image of Revolutionary War re-enactor and Korean War veteran Charles Price, is displayed near the village green, Monday, April 13, 2026, in Lexington, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Revolutionary War re-enactor Charles Price, 95, who for decades portrayed enslaved Minuteman Prince Estabrook, poses for a portrait near the village green, Monday, April 13, 2026, in Lexington, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Ryan J. Woods, President & Chief Executive Officer of the American Ancestors museum, gestures to artifacts, believed to be from the residence of a black soldier who fought in the Revolutionary War, during a tour of the "Patriots of Color" exhibition at the museum, Wednesday, April 15, 2026, in Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Ryan J. Woods, President & Chief Executive Officer of the American Ancestors museum, far right, gives a tour of the "Patriots of Color" exhibition at the museum, Wednesday, April 15, 2026, in Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Revolutionary War re-enactor Charles Price, 95, who for decades portrayed enslaved Minuteman Prince Estabrook, poses for a portrait near the Minute Man statue, Monday, April 13, 2026, in Lexington, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)