The Carolina Hurricanes put Montreal on the brink of elimination Wednesday night, blanking the Canadiens 4-0 at Bell Centre to take a 3-1 lead in the Eastern Conference Final. Carolina is now one win from its first Stanley Cup Final appearance since winning the championship in 2006.

Sebastian Aho, Jordan Staal, Logan Stankoven, and Andrei Svechnikov scored. Frederik Andersen stopped all 18 shots he faced for the shutout. Game 5 is Friday night at Lenovo Center in Raleigh, where Carolina will have a chance to close out the series.

Carolina scored three times in the first period — all in a span of less than three minutes — to turn Game 4 into a rout before Montreal had time to recover. The Hurricanes took the first six shots of the game, then capitalized when it counted. Aho converted a power-play goal, Staal added another, and Stankoven — whose tally was his team-high eighth goal of the postseason — made it 3-0 before the period was out. Svechnikov added an empty-net goal in the third.

The 43-shot performance by Carolina against 18 for Montreal reflected a lopsided territorial game. In Games 2 and 3, the Hurricanes had held the Canadiens to 12 and 13 shots on goal respectively, and the pattern continued Wednesday on an even larger scale.

Andersen has been central to Carolina's recovery after losing Game 1 by a score of 6-2. He entered Game 4 with a 1.56 goals-against average and a .923 save percentage, numbers that reflect how tightly Carolina has controlled possession and shot quality since that opener.

The Hurricanes will face the Vegas Golden Knights if they advance. Vegas won the Western Conference Final.