RALEIGH, N.C. — The Carolina Hurricanes have been searching for their very own game breaker for years, to the extent that they’ve aggressively inquired on and chased basically every marquee scorer who has been in the rumor mill, via trade or free agency.In 2023-24, there was the brief, 28-game flirtation with Jake Guentzel, before he decamped to Tampa. And the even briefer 13 games of the Mikko Rantanen Experiment last season before he, too, chose another more appealing destination (Dallas) rather than sign long term in the Tar Heel state.The Hurricanes were interested in Mitch Marner in free agency last summer as well, had there been mutual interest, but he had eyes only for Vegas. Which left only, really, Nikolaj Ehlers to pursue in a rather thin unrestricted free-agent class.Not that it seems much pursuing was necessary. Because, right from the beginning, this was where Ehlers wanted to be.So much so that attempts by a longtime friend and countryman to convince him felt as they weren’t even really required.“I reached out and said he’s welcome to call whenever,” Hurricanes goaltender and fellow Denmark native Frederik Andersen said of trying to help his club woo Ehlers last July 1. “But I think he was very, very set on coming here. Just the way the team has been doing (in the standings) the last few years, the quality of living here. He’s enjoyed it so far.”It’s fair to say the Hurricanes have, too.Ehlers was the best player on the ice for both teams in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference final Saturday, a 3-2 overtime win over the Montreal Canadiens that the favored Hurricanes desperately needed to get back in the series. The slick, quick 168-pound winger appropriately nicknamed “Fly” scored twice — including the OT winner — on two of the types of individual efforts for which the Hurricanes agreed to pay him $51 million last summer.As they often do, the Hurricanes dominated territorially, piling up 26 shots on goal to just 12 for the young Canadiens. In years past, there were times they would lose a game that looked like this, one in which the margins on the scoreboard were much closer than the shot clock. But Ehlers has given Carolina a newfound level of offensive depth, especially given he’s meshed surprisingly well with Jordan Staal and Jordan Martinook, two veteran checkers who have been mucking and grinding for years on a team that does that better than anyone.What those two haven’t really had is a linemate who can, well, fly the way Ehlers can. It’s made the Hurricanes more unpredictable and harder to line-match most of the campaign, especially given they’re a trio who can handle a tough defensive assignment (such as shutting down Montreal’s top line Saturday) and chip in key goals.The combination is rather unorthodox: It’s not often an NHL player who’s routinely scored 25 goals and 60-plus points spends a first season after signing a massive $8.5 million average-annual-value UFA deal alongside a couple of 30-point vets and enjoys it and thrives. Originally intended to be No. 1 center Sebastian Aho’s wingman, Ehlers instead has excelled as something else entirely, producing a career-high 71 points in part by turning a checking unit known as the “Identity Line” into something more dynamic and harder for opponents to get their hands around.“Jordo and Marty’s been for a long time here a line that really do things right and the way we want it,” Andersen explained. “Oftentimes they spend more time in the (opponent’s) end, but it’s in a lower-risk way and not taking too many chances to score but to really grind and check for the chances. That’s where Nikolaj comes in really well in adding extra skill and extra speed.”“That’s what they’ve been doing all year,” fourth-liner Mark Jankowski said. “They can shut down any line in the league and then they chip in with offense as well. Obviously, Fly on that line being able to do what he does and then other two complement him so well, so much. It’s awesome to have a line like that.”“He’s a special talent,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour added. “It was on full display tonight. … (Having him) makes you that much tougher to play against. We don’t have to change our game. But now you add that piece in there, and suddenly we’re more explosive. There’s a guy that can win the game for you. That’s an important element — especially in a game like this. It’s tight, and we need that goal. And he’s got the ability to basically do it himself, is what happened.”Andersen described Ehlers’ personality as “low key,” another thing that has made him a good fit with Carolina. Part of what he was looking to avoid in moving on from the Winnipeg Jets, the only NHL home he had known, was somewhere he could blend in and avoid the noise of a, well, noisier media market.But it’s also clear that after 10 months in Raleigh, that doesn’t mean he’s intimidated on this stage, playing in the third round against a Canadiens team that’s brought with it a massive media contingent and national spotlight. Ehlers was beaming on the podium when asked about the emotions that went with scoring these two goals — his first tallies this deep in the playoffs, 11 seasons into his career — for his new team, teammates and fans, and he seemed almost speechless trying to express what it all meant.There had been a narrative building over a decade in Winnipeg that he came up small in the biggest moments, that he was a perimeter player, what with only nine goals and 21 points in 45 career playoff games before this run. Now he’s scored four enormous goals in his past five outings with the Hurricanes and is clearly growing in confidence as his coach relies on him in situations — such as the top power-play unit, or against top competition — he didn’t always get with the Jets.This is what Ehlers was seeking when he chose Carolina over bigger markets and a bigger payday: being seven wins from a championship and a key figure in helping push an already strong franchise over the hump and back to the Stanley Cup Final for the first time in 20 years.While there are still a lot more battles and big games to go to get there, Ehlers believes right now, in this moment, he is where he is supposed to be.“Coming to a new place, it was the first time in my career (changing teams), and it’s been great so far,” Ehlers said. “It’s been special. The city’s been great. The guys, the organization. So to be able to do this, at home, in front of our crowd, was special. I felt everything out there. That’s one I’m not going to forget.“I can barely talk right now. I was yelling pretty loudly after that OT winner.”And he had 18,819 others yelling right along with him, too.