The Carolina Hurricanes came up short against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Sunday, March 13, falling 4-2. The Canes fell behind early and simply couldn’t keep up in their third game in four days.
Carolina (41-13-5) netted two goals in the third period, but Pittsburgh (36-15-9) had the upper hand for the whole game. The Canes went into the second intermission down 2-0 before the Pens fended off Carolina’s comeback efforts in the third.
The biggest barrier behind the Hurricanes and two points was Penguins goaltender Tristan Jarry who simply outplayed Carolina for most of the game. The Canes threw 43 shots at the opposing net across 60 minutes and outshot Pittsburgh 20-4 in the final period, but Jarry simply played standing on his head all afternoon, making 41 saves.
“He played great,” said head coach Rod Brind’Amour. “He made some big saves for them. He didn’t have a bunch of tough ones, I don’t think, but he certainly was really good when he had to be.”
After two periods of struggling to get back into the game, defenseman Brett Pesce finally put the Canes on the scoreboard early in the third with a swift flick of the stick to sneak the puck past Jarry. By pulling his team within one, Pesce’s goal set up a tense, roughly 14-minute stretch where Carolina pressed for an equalizer while Pittsburgh held on tightly to its lead.
“It all came from [center Vincent Trocheck],” Pesce said. “That line was just doing a great job of keeping it below their goal line. It kind of squirted out, and I saw a little soft spot there at the top of the circles. Trocheck found me, and I just tried to throw it on net.”
The Hurricanes never got that equalizer though. Sidney Crosby extended the Penguins’ lead to 3-1 with under two minutes to go, but center Sebastian Aho scored just 14 seconds later to give Carolina another shot at forcing overtime. But despite the Canes’ last-gasp efforts, Zach Aston-Reese scored the dagger on an empty net with 12 seconds left.
Despite the result, the Canes garnered a lot of knowledge on how to play tight games down the stretch, especially against a playoff team like Pittsburgh.
“The whole season you’re going to learn from every game,” Aho said. “There’s a lot of details. It doesn’t matter if it’s 6-on-5 or 5-on-6, you want to scout what they do and at the same time you have to come up with your own plays and feel comfortable with them and trust them. Stuff like that. It definitely helps when you get these experiences in the tight games.”
Carolina will get a few days to recuperate before heading north of the border to take on the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday, March 17. Puck drops at 7 p.m.
