RALEIGH — The Hurricanes put together perhaps their most impressive win of the season Tuesday, going perfect on special teams and overwhelming defending Stanley Cup champion Vegas in a 6-3 win.
Andrei Svechnikov, Jordan Staal, Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Michael Bunting, Seth Jarvis and Brady Skjei scored for Carolina, and Pyotr Kochetkov made 30 saves as the Hurricanes extended their point streak to five games.
Three observations
1. It would have been easy to circle this game before the season as a Stanley Cup finals preview. Then the Hurricanes stumbled into the Christmas season, battling for a wild card spot instead of the Presidents’ Trophy.
Carolina reminded the NHL what they’re capable of Tuesday night.
The Golden Knights came into the game ranked in the top 10 in just about every team statistic: wins, points, goals for, goals against, power play and penalty kill.
But it was the Hurricanes that looked like the best team in the league. At 5-on-5, Carolina held a 30-13 edge in scoring chances, including an 11-7 advantage in high-danger opportunities.
Eleven different players had points, and at least one player from all four lines and three defense pairs had a point.
“It was nice to see us get rewarded,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “All year the pucks haven’t been going in, and then tonight they did. I think it’s good for the guys to just, ‘All right, I got rewarded tonight for what we’ve been doing.’ We were playing, I think, really well here lately, it’s just been tough finding the net. It’s something we’ve been building on, and we’ve got to continue.”
2. Svechnikov returned to the lineup after missing six games while recovering from an upper-body injury suffered when Jets defenseman Logan Stanley cross-checked him Dec. 4 in Winnipeg.
It took him just over 10 minutes to get his second goal of the year.
On Carolina’s first power play of the night, Svechnikov was set up in the right circle and snapped a shot past Logan Thompson (22 saves) to get the Hurricanes — and their special teams — rolling.
“I wasn’t sure how he would look,” Brind’Amour said. “He hasn’t played. He was impactful. That’s what we were missing.”
It had been 655 days since Svechnikov had a game with a goal and five or more hits (March 4, 2022, a 3-2 home win over Pittsburgh), according to Hockey-Reference.com.
“I pretty much didn’t play for a year … and obviously I had some juice,” Svechnikov said of returning to the lineup after playing just 16 games since undergoing knee surgery. “(I was) trying to make the plays and hit some guys and make it easier on the boys.”
3. About those special teams: Carolina went 3 for 3 on the power play and 4 for 4 on the penalty kill, and the Hurricanes did it without smoke and mirrors.
The PK was efficient, denying zone entries, keeping Vegas to the outside and getting timely saves from Kochetkov. The power play was as well, getting a skill goal by Svechnikov and then a pair of “get to the net” goals by Bunting and Jarvis.
“That’s one of their strengths as a team is special teams because they’ve got special players,” Brind’Amour said of Vegas. “We were able to win that tonight, and that was obviously the difference in the game.”
It marked the third time this month Carolina has had a perfect night on special teams. On Dec. 2, the Hurricanes went 2 for 2 on the power play and 5 for 5 on the penalty kill in a win over Buffalo, and in Ottawa on Dec. 12 they went 2 for 2 with the man advantage again and killed all off all four penalties.
Carolina also scored on their lone power play and killed off five penalties in Philadelphia on Oct. 30.
“You can’t ask for anything more from special teams on our end,” Bunting said of Tuesday’s performance.
Number to know
7 — Shots on goal for Sebastian Aho, matching the most by a Hurricanes player this season. Jaccob Slavin (Nov. 4, 4-3 overtime win at the Islanders) and Jarvis (Dec. 14, 2-1 win at Detroit) are the others. Aho finished with three assists, his second three-point game of the season.
Plus
Brady Skjei, Hurricanes defenseman — Enjoy No. 76 while you can. Skjei put in his entry for Hurricanes goal of the year early in the third period, knocking a clearing attempt out of the air with his glove, out-battling perennial Selke Trophy contender Mark Stone (and teammate Staal, since if the Carolina captain had touched the puck first it would have been a hand pass), racing to the net and shooting short side high over the glove of Thompson to push the lead to 6-1.
The boys are BUZZING pic.twitter.com/OL8GNgBfoH
— Carolina Hurricanes (@Canes) December 20, 2023
“He’s been great ever since he became a Hurricane,” Brind’Amour said. “That goal was just all him, gapping up and then winning the battles and then ripping it in the net. I mean, that’s pretty impressive.”
Skjei’s 13 even-strength points are tied for 18th among NHL defensemen (one behind Slavin), and his price is going through the roof in a contract year.
Minus
84 seconds — The final 1:24 of the game left something to be desired as Vegas scored twice to turn a blowout into a more respectable final score. Carolina had snuffed out the Golden Knights’ chances of a comeback by then, but it was a good reminder that a game’s never over.
They said it
“My grandparents flew in last night. They came to Montreal (and) I got sent down the same day, so they have never seen me play in NHL, so I felt good.”
— Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Hurricanes center
