Hurricanes Unleash Four-Goal Period to Win 6-3 in San Jose
The Carolina Hurricanes played their best 60-minute effort of the entire season and were rewarded for it with a 6-3 win over the San Jose Sharks Tuesday night.
The Hurricanes, who were coming off of a 6-3 loss to the Anaheim Ducks, might have had a reason to start slow with the loss of star center Sebastian Aho, who took the warmup skate but did not play due to an upper-body injury, but they came out of the gate strong.
They then lost starting goaltender Frederik Andersen, who left in the first period after taking a shot off the helmet, but the team didn't miss a beat and continued to look as dominant as ever.
"Management has done a great job of giving us a team that has depth at all positions," said defenseman Jaccob Slavin. "That's huge, but also as a team, we know we haven't been playing great hockey, so we wanted to come out strong tonight."
Carolina outshot the Sharks 42-16 and outchanced them 50-21 as they completely controlled the game at even strength.
It was also a good night for the power play, which went 3 for 7, including scoring the tying and go-ahead goals in the third.
"I think we had a really good pre-scout," said Stefan Noesen who scored a power play goal in the third. "Kind of understood what they were doing and we executed."
The Hurricanes entered the third period down 3-2 after giving up two power play goals in the second period, a period which saw them penalized four times.
However, timely power play goals by Noesen and Seth Jarvis, who scored his first two goals of the season on the man advantage, boosted the Hurricanes into the lead and then Martin Necas and Brett Pesce put it away.
"I thought we played really well all night," Noesen said. "Some calls didn't go our way, but we battled through it and find a way to capitalize on a big third."
Multiple players had multi-point nights, including Brady Skjei, Michael Bunting, Jarvis, Jesperi Kotkaniemi and Martin Necas.
Skjei and Teuvo Teravainen also extended their season-opening point streaks to four games.
"We were able to stick with what we believed would work and that's what I give the guys credit for," said Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour. "Really the whole game, that's what it was. It wasn't going our way, but it probably should have been going our way the way we were playing, but the guys didn't veer off. A couple of weird things that didn't go our way that could have really derailed it, but the guys were just worried about the next shift and did a good job."
Teravainen, who was filling in as the 1C in Aho's absence, continued to play well. He went 11 for 18 in the faceoff dot, and his line had the highest Corsi (71.43%) and expected goals (91.24%) according to NaturalStatTrick.com.
Slavin also increased the team's shorthanded goal total to four with his second SHG of the season.
The Hurricanes finally played the way they needed to fora full 60-minutes and came away with a big win.
Head coach Rod Brind'Amour confirmed after the game that Andersen was pulled simply for precautionary reasons and said that he doesn't think the Aho injury is anything serious.
The Canes will continue the road trip as they head north to face the Seattle Kraken on Thursday night.
Recent Articles
