Goaltender Antti Raanta salvaged a point for the Carolina Hurricanes in a 4-3 overtime loss to the Detroit Red Wings on Tuesday, March 1. The Canes skaters stumbled in several places and eventually ran out of gas in OT.
Raanta’s 37-save performance was easily the best by a player in a Canes (37-11-5) sweater, but the Red Wings (24-24-6) were simply the better team. Carolina’s lack of focus peaked in the overtime period when a peculiar penalty for too many men on the ice led to Detroit’s game winner on the ensuing power play.
“I didn’t love our second period, we were just flat,” said head coach Rod Brind’Amour. “And that sucked the life out of us. I thought the third period was really good, just a couple of weird bounces, right? We get it and then it just flips out over Skjeisy’s stick there. Just some weird things happening. But overall, we weren’t that great.”
The Canes held a 1-0 lead heading into the first intermission largely thanks to Raanta keeping his focus from the get-go. However, Carolina couldn’t rally behind its goalie’s repeated efforts to keep the Hurricanes in the lead. Several mishaps throughout the game hampered the Canes’ ability to take the heat off its netminder.
Carolina’s league-leading penalty kill got the job done as usual in regulation, stopping all three Detroit power plays, but the OT clincher by Lucas Raymond mirrored several other lowlights for the Canes defense on the night: Carolina simply couldn’t get the puck out of their own zone and the Red Wings eventually capitalized.
“Rants played unbelievable,” said defenseman Jaccob Slavin. “It’s a shame we didn’t play a full 60 for him. He made huge saves throughout the game, huge saves in overtime. We just got to be better for him.”
One silver line that the Canes can take away is the continued success of the Finnish duo of left wing Teuvo Teräväinen and center Sebastian Aho. Teräväinen stretched his point streak to nine games with an assist to Aho’s first-period goal that opened the scoring. With that connection, Aho and Teräväinen have combined for 172 career goals, the most in franchise history.
The Hurricanes will now head back up the east coast for a Metropolitan division matchup with the Washington Capitals on Thursday, March 3. Puck drops at 7 p.m.
