Canadiens look at home on the road entering Game 2 of Eastern Conference Final against Hurricanes

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The Montreal Canadiens have shown neither fear nor hesitation when playing on the road in the NHL playoffs.

That approach carried a young, skilled team through a pair of Game 7 road wins to reach the Eastern Conference Final.

Then it had them get the jump on a Carolina Hurricanes team coming off a long layoff after sweeping through the first two postseason rounds to open the third round.

Montreal is 7-2 on the road in the postseason entering Saturday night's Game 2, defying the gravity that typically comes with playing in front of hostile crowds and facing against an opponent's preferred matchups.

“I don't know, it's a good question,” Canadiens forward Josh Anderson said Friday when asked to explain the team's road success. “Maybe less thinking and you want to calm the storm a little bit. I think on the road our starts have been pretty good and we’re well organized. We just play the right way and I think we play to our identity. ... I think we always find a way to try to gain the momentum back.”

The Canadiens went 3-1 on the road in their series as the upstart against both Tampa Bay and Buffalo, then beat Carolina 6-2 for the Hurricanes' first postseason loss after their 8-0 start to the playoffs.

Along the way, the Canadiens have scored first in five of nine road games, led at the first intermission in six, never trailed in four and led entering the third period in the past four straight.

They've also proven capable of handling adversity in those tests, from surviving the Game 7 against the Lightning with only nine shots on goal to scoring four unanswered goals that turned a 3-2 deficit in Game 5 at Buffalo into a 6-3 win.

Or, in Thursday's case, it was seizing it from the opening minutes against the Eastern Conference's top seed. Montreal regrouped from giving up a goal just 33 seconds into the game by scoring four times by midway through the opening period.

Afterward, coach Martin St. Louis pointed to confidence coming from a regular season where the Canadiens tied for second in the league with 56 road points.

“You’ve got to trust that the guys can just, like I always say, play the game that’s in front of them, understanding who’s on the other side, who’s on the ice while that’s happening,” St. Louis said Thursday night. “Young players, they love to have these offensive touches. And I think sometimes it’s just not what the game’s giving you right now. You’ve got to defend.”

That approach worked perfectly Thursday. The Canadiens jumped on the Hurricanes as they emerged from the longest playoff break (11 days) in more than a century. They confidently moved the puck out of trouble against Carolina’s aggressive pressure and capitalized on Hurricanes breakdowns with a quick succession of clean breakouts and breakaway chances.

And that spry start came even after the Hurricanes scored just 33 seconds into the game, signaling a fast start that turned out to be merely a mirage.

“One team looked like an Eastern Conference Final team,” Hurricanes forward Taylor Hall said Friday, “and the other didn’t.”

That left coach Rod Brind'Amour saying after Thursday's game he figured the only thing the team could do was toss the result as a one-off considering how out of character the Hurricanes looked in repeatedly giving up so many high-danger chances.

“Obviously they're battle-tested right now. But we feel that a lot of that was self-inflicted," Hall said.

The Hurricanes are in the postseason for the eighth straight year and this is their third trip to the Eastern Conference Final in four seasons. But they're now 1-13 in those games during this run under Brind'Amour to create what has become an imposing obstacle for a team that regularly ranks among the league's best in the regular season.

The Hurricanes did a much better job in the second period of getting to their game of getting the puck into the offensive zone and staying there to pressure the Canadiens, all while minimizing the number of chances going the other way. But by then they were trying to recover from a 4-1 deficit.

“You have to play to it, we didn't play to it,” Brind'Amour said of the team's preferred style. "I'd like to see how the result is when you play your game, and that was not what we did last night.”

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

Carolina Hurricanes' Seth Jarvis (24) collides with Montréal Canadiens' Nick Suzuki (14) during the first period in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals NHL hockey Stanley Cup playoffs series in Raleigh, N.C., Thursday, May 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Karl DeBlaker)

Montréal Canadiens' Alexandre Carrier (45) controls the puck against the Carolina Hurricanes during the first period in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals NHL hockey Stanley Cup playoffs series in Raleigh, N.C., Thursday, May 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Karl DeBlaker)

Carolina Hurricanes' K'andre Miller (19) slides to the ice to attempt to block a pass by Montréal Canadiens' Josh Anderson (17) during the first period in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals NHL hockey Stanley Cup playoffs series in Raleigh, N.C., Thursday, May 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Karl DeBlaker)

Montréal Canadiens' Mike Matheson (8) takes out Carolina Hurricanes' Taylor Hall (71) in front of Canadiens goaltender Jakub Dobes (75) during the second period in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals NHL hockey Stanley Cup playoffs series in Raleigh, N.C., Thursday, May 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Karl DeBlaker)

NEW YORK (AP) — The split between Wall Street and most U.S. households grew wider Friday as U.S. stocks rose to the finish of their eighth straight winning week, the best such streak since 2023. That’s even though a survey showed U.S. consumers are feeling even worse about the economy.

The S&P 500 added 0.4% and pulled closer to its all-time high set in the middle of last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 294 points, or 0.6%, and the Nasdaq composite gained 0.2%.

Ross Stores helped drive the market and rose 8.1% after the off-price retailer reported profit and revenue for the latest quarter that easily cleared analysts’ expectations. CEO Jim Conroy said it saw strong customer traffic through the three months, and the company may have benefited from households spending their tax refunds.

Estee Lauder jumped 11.9% after saying it was no longer considering a possible merger with Puig, the Spanish fragrance and beauty products company.

Workday rose 5.2%, and Zoom Communications jumped 9.2% after both delivered better profit reports for the latest quarter than analysts expected.

They’re the latest companies to top analysts’ expectations for earnings for the start of 2026, and the cavalcade of such reports has helped U.S. stocks remain near their records. Stock prices tend to follow the path of corporate profits over the long term.

The strength is coming even after a survey of U.S. consumers by the University of Michigan found sentiment fell to a record low, piercing below a bottom in 2022 when inflation peaked above 9%. Households are feeling worried about how bad inflation is now because of expensive oil created by the war with Iran.

U.S. consumers are forecasting inflation will worsen to 4.8% in the coming 12 months, up from a forecast of 4.7% last month, according to the survey. In the longer run, their forecasts for inflation jumped to 3.9% from 3.5% last month. Such rising expectations are a concern for economists because they can drive behavior that creates a vicious cycle that makes inflation worse.

Sentiment dropped in particular for lower-income consumers who are least able to absorb higher costs for essentials, and it fell for Republicans as well, according to the survey.

Helping to keep uncertainty high have been continued swings for oil prices. They yo-yoed again Friday, like they did through the week on uncertainty about when the United States and Iran may find a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The closure has prevented oil tankers from exiting the Persian Gulf and delivering crude to customers worldwide.

The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil to be delivered in August added 0.7% to settle at $100.21 after erasing an earlier decline.

Worries about inflation staying high have pushed bond yields higher worldwide, threatening to slow economies and undercut prices for stocks and all kinds of other investments. High yields have already forced the average long-term U.S. mortgage rate to its most expensive level since last summer, and they could curtail companies’ borrowing to build the AI data centers that have supported the U.S. economy’s growth recently.

Yields had been down Friday morning, offering some relief, before wavering after oil prices erased their losses and the survey on consumer sentiment showed worsening inflation expectations.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury edged down to 4.56% from 4.57% late Thursday, but it remains well above its 3.97% level from before the war.

Worries about inflation have climbed so high that traders on Wall Street have eliminated bets that the Federal Reserve will resume its cuts to interest rates later this year. Lower rates would give the economy a boost, but they could also worsen inflation.

An important member of the Fed, Gov. Christopher Waller, said in a speech Friday, “If I believe inflation expectations start to become unanchored, I would not hesitate to support an increase in the target range for the federal funds rate.”

But he also said that is not the case now in his speech titled “Policy Risks Have Changed.” Instead, he said it “is time to simply sit and watch how the conflict and the data evolve.”

In stock markets abroad, indexes rose across Europe and Asia.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 climbed 2.7% to another record after a report showed inflation hitting a four-year low in April, at 1.4%, despite higher prices for oil and gas due to the war.

On Wall Street, the S&P 500 rose 27.75 points to 7,473.47. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 294.04 to 50,579.70, and the Nasdaq composite added 50.87 to 26,343.97.

AP Business Writers Chan Ho-him and Matt Ott contributed to this report.

Specialist Anthony Matesic, left, and trader Fred Demarco work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Friday, May 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Options trader Steven Rodriguez, center, works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Monday, May 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

A dealer talks on the phone at a dealing room of Hana Bank in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, May 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

Asia markets index of Japan, South Korea and Australia is seen on a screen at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, May 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

Currency traders watch monitors at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, May 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)