RALEIGH — For 40 minutes, not much had gone the Hurricanes’ way. The officials seemed determined not to give Carolina a power play, No. 3 goalie Spencer Martin was struggling to handle all the Grade-A chances the team in front of him was allowing, and the visiting Stars had built a two-goal lead.
The third period was a different story.
The Hurricanes scored five times, including on both of their power play opportunities, in the third period and got three- and four-point nights from Seth Jarvis and Sebastian Aho, respectively, in a come-from-behind 6-4 win Monday at Lenovo Center.
“We’ve got faith in ourselves,” said Jarvis, who was playing for the first time since Nov. 9 due to an upper-body injury. “I think that’s what makes this team so good is that we never feel out of it.”
It was Jarvis who dragged the team into the fight. After scoring a shorthanded goal in the first period, Jarvis set up Aho’s goal just after another penalty expired 70 seconds into the third period to make it 3-2 Dallas and kickstart Carolina’s comeback.
“You’re not really sure how the guy’s gonna respond,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said of Jarvis missing the last seven games. “He didn’t even practice. … And obviously he was, I thought, the best player on ice, even early. So he’s a special player. We’ve known that, and to do it after sitting out for, what is it, a couple weeks or whatever, that says a lot about him.”
Just over 2½ minutes later, Brent Burns got his first goal of the year to tie it, snapping a shot short-side past Stars goalie Jake Oettinger (28 saves).
“It’s nice to see Burnzie get that,” Brind’Amour said. “He’s been kind of snake bit a little this year, and that’s nice to get at that time at that big of a moment.”
Jarvis added, “Everyone loves when he scores, and I think he loves scoring more than anybody I’ve ever seen.”
Carolina — after seeing several no-calls in the first 40 minutes — finally got its first power play of the night, and Shayne Gostisbehere made it count with his fifth goal of the season on a shot over Oettinger’s glove.
In 8:09 of the third period, the Hurricanes had turned a 3-1 deficit into a 4-3 lead.
“Most of the time, you stick with it, you’re going to get at least one look on the power (play), and it happened,” said Aho, who got his second of three assists on the goal. “And obviously, way to make it count.”
After Dallas defenseman Miro Heiskanen’s goal at 14:46 tied the game 4-4, Carolina got a second power play chance. This time, it was Martin Necas — with the help of a fortuitous bounce that went off Stars defenseman Ilya Lyubushkin’s skate and then ramped up Oettinger’s stick into the net — with the goal that put the Hurricanes up for good.
“Getting ‘em any way you can,” Jarvis said of Necas’ 12th goal of the year, which tied him with Nathan MacKinnon for the NHL point lead with 35.
Andrei Svechnikov added an empty-netter with 15 seconds left to seal the win in the first game of what will arguably be the toughest stretch of games in the regular season.
“That third was exactly what we needed,” Jarvis said. “There’s a lot of credit to the older guys in here, just kind of keeping us composed, knowing that when we find our game, that we got to trust it and that good things are gonna happen.”
Notes: Pyotr Kochetkov did not dress for the game because he is in the concussion protocol. … Aho won 15 of 18 faceoffs. … Aho registered the 10th four-point game of his career. … Carolina outhit the Stars 32-12.
