RALEIGH — On the night the Hurricanes retired the No. 12 of Eric Staal, the opening 47 minutes of their game against the visiting Ducks on Sunday looked a lot like the end of the former captain’s tenure in Raleigh, with Carolina unable to score and Anaheim building a two-goal lead.
The final 13 minutes of regulation, however, were like some of Staal’s greatest moments shown on the video board during his retirement ceremony before the game.
Carolina got a power play goal just before the midway point of the third and then scored with the goalie pulled with under a minute to play in regulation to earn a point before losing in overtime on rookie Cutter Gauthier’s second goal of the night in a 3-2 loss.
“The game was there,” Hurricanes captain Jordan Staal said, “and the boys battled back and ground out a point. But still kind of a kick in the privates at the end.”
Gauthier entered the Carolina zone at 3-on-3 and shot from the left faceoff circle, scoring past a drifting Pyotr Kochetkov to give the visiting Ducks a win. It was the second of three goals on the night that Kochetkov looked out of sorts allowing.
“There’s a couple goals there you’d probably like to have back, but that’s hockey,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said.
The Hurricanes were fortunate to earn a point after trailing 2-0 in the third period.
Carolina got within one on its first full power play of the game — though it had to score twice to make it count.
After Sebastian Aho’s goal was called off following a challenge for goaltender interference, Aho set up Andrei Svechnikov for a back door tap-in at 7:48 of the third for his 15th goal of the season to make it 2-1.
Then, with Kochetkov on for an extra attacker, Seth Jarvis missed on a wide-open chance off a Svechnikov feed but made amends with 56 seconds left, spinning and shooting into the far corner over the glove of Ducks goalie Lukas Dostal (35 saves) to tie the game 2-2.
“It was a good job by everybody just bearing down and at least scavenging a point out of it, but the whole goal is always to get two points,” Jarvis said. “Especially on a night like this, it’s a little bit disappointing when you have such a special night and honoring someone that meant so much to this organization, to lose is a little tough.”
Despite playing their third game in four nights, the Hurricanes got off to a strong start that was squandered because of a blown coverage that handed the Ducks a 1-0 lead after 20 minutes.
Just before the midway point of the opening period, Nikita Nesterenko collected the puck on the left boards and centered a pass in between four Carolina players to a slashing Jansen Harkins, who shot from the hash marks over the blocker of Kochetkov (18 saves) to give Anaheim the early lead.
After a second period without any scoring, the Ducks doubled their lead on the second shift of the third.
Gauthier drove wide on Carolina defenseman Jaccob Slavin and lifted a shot over the shoulder of Kochetkov at 1:18 of the third.
The Ducks effectively kept Carolina from around Dostal’s crease, and the Czech netminder — who won a World Championship last summer playing on his national team with Martin Necas — outplayed Kochetkov.
Dostal’s best save of the game came just five minutes in when he lunged for a Necas shot and got a piece of the puck with the shaft of his stick.
“Those are the inches here or there that just change the whole game,” Brind’Amour said.
Still, the Hurricanes managed to bank five of six points in their three-games-in-four-days stretch to keep pace in the Metropolitan Division.
“I love how we fought, came back,” Brind’Amour said. “Get a power play goal, get it taken off the board, come back on the same power play, score again, and then tie it up late. That’s a good effort.”
Notes: Ducks center Isac Lundestrom won 12 of 14 faceoffs. … Svechnikov’s goal extended his point streak to six games. … Necas had two assists for his first multipoint game since Dec. 5. … Aho’s assist ended a three-game point drought. … Gauthier had the first two-goal game of his career.
