RALEIGH — Jack Eichel was forced into a turnover by Jordan Martinook at the Hurricanes blue line, leading to Martinook scoring on a breakaway to tie the game in the second period.
Eichel made up for in the third.
The Golden Knights superstar scored twice in the final five minutes, breaking a tie and giving the visitors a cushion in Vegas’ 6-3 win over the Hurricanes on Tuesday at Lenovo Center.
“Five minutes to go, we make a bad decision,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said of Taylor Hall’s turnover at the Vegas blue line that sent Eichel on a breakaway that broke a 3-3 tie at 15:01 of the third period.
“You’ve got to make better decisions there,” Brind’Amour added. “Especially when you know the best players are out there, they make you pay.”
Eichel capped a three-point night on his 29th birthday by scoring again just over 2½ minutes later off a pass from Ivan Barbashev, and Tomas Hertl’s empty netter with 22 seconds left made an otherwise tight game seem lopsided.
Carolina also added more bodies to its list of walking wounded. Shayne Gostisbehere, playing his first game after missing three-plus games with a lower-body injury, lasted just over 7 minutes Tuesday before leaving with a new injury to his midsection, Brind’Amour said.
Then rookie Joel Nystrom, already pressed into service due to injuries to Jaccob Slavin and K’Andre Miller, missed more than 11½ minutes of game time spanning the second and third periods after he was struck in the face with a puck.
The Hurricanes, down to four defensemen while Nystrom faced repairs, even had to use forward Mark Jankowski on defense for a brief time in the second period.
“You can’t cry about it or whine,” defenseman Jalen Chatfield, who joined Alexander Nikishin (27:33) in playing a career high in minutes at 25:45. “I mean, we had a few guys out, so you’ve got a job to do, and you’ve got to step up and make plays.”
The Hurricanes did find a way to stay in the game.
On top of Martinook scoring his first of the season to tie the game in second period, Andrei Svechnikov got his first goal and point of the year by wiring a Sebastian Aho faceoff win past Akira Schmid (21 saves) 2 seconds into Carolina’s lone power play of the night.
Brind’Amour expressed frustration at the power play opportunities his team has seen compared to its opponents.
“The more disturbing thing is just the disparity now,” Brind’Amour said when asked about the lack of power play time against the Knights. “And it’s been pretty much all year. We’re just constantly in the box, and it’s not a lot of equal time. Usually it evens itself out, but it hasn’t.”
Vegas had four man advantages to Carolina’s one on Tuesday, and for the season the Hurricanes have had 30 chances to opponents’ 35.
Vegas used one of them to take the lead in first period.
After Svechnikov gave Carolina an early lead, Pavel Dorofeyev tied the game just under three minutes later with a backhand that went over the pad of Frederik Andersen (29 saves) and then got his second with a one-timer on the power play with 1:57 left in the opening period.
Logan Stankoven followed Martinook’s second period goal with his third of the season at 2:31 of the third to give the Hurricanes the lead again. But Brett Howden got around Dominick Fensore — playing in place of Mike Reilly, giving Carolina three defensemen in the lineup — and scored at 6:10 of the third to tie the game 3-3.
Then Eichel made amends for his earlier gaffe with his two late goals to give the Knights a season sweep of the Hurricanes and drop Carolina to 6-3-0
“There’s no moral victories in hockey, but I wish there was,” Martinook said of the shorthanded Hurricanes again playing a tight game against a top team but falling short. “But our job in here is to try and win hockey games, and obviously we’ve haven’t done that the last couple nights.”
Notes: Jaccob Slavin, K’Andre Miller, Eric Robinson, William Carrier and Pyotr Kochetkov all didn’t dress due to injury. Fensore became the 10th Hurricanes defensemen to play in nine Carolina games, matching the total from last year’s regular season. … Aho stretched his point streak to nine games. … Dorofeyev finished with nine shots on goal.
