The Carolina Hurricanes suffered a 7-4 loss on the road against the Colorado Avalanche on Saturday, April 16.
The Canes (48-20-8) did themselves no favors from the get-go, facing a 4-0 hole against the Avalanche (55-14-6) early in the second period, but the bigger concern for Carolina is the injuries it racked up in the game. Goaltender Frederik Andersen left the ice late in the third period with a lower-body injury and center Jordan Staal went to the locker room six minutes earlier after taking a hard hit from Cole Makar.
Head coach Rod Brind’Amour did not have any updates on the status of his team’s captain or its primary goalie, but did say that it “doesn’t look good.” With the postseason just around the corner, any extended periods of absence from Andersen or Staal could derail the Hurricanes’ Stanley Cup bid.
Prior to a Nathan MacKinnon dagger midway through the third period, the Hurricanes managed to make the game competitive despite the early deficit. Just 41 seconds after Ben Meyers made it 4-0, Staal put Carolina on the board with a redirect off a shot by defenseman Brady Skjei. Staal repeated this effort five minutes later by redirected right wing Nino Niederreiter’s shot past Darcy Kuemper to make it 4-2.
The Canes’ third line of Staal, Niederreiter and left wing Jesper Fast sparked Carolina back into action. But despite carrying momentum in the third while only down 5-3, that line’s impact was hampered in the final period thanks to a 10-minute misconduct penalty for abusive language on Niederreiter with 15:52 left to play.
On the home bench, the Avs were simply the better team all night. Outside the obvious feat of putting up seven goals on a playoff-caliber team in the Hurricanes, Colorado exhibited much more cohesion and overall quality than Carolina.
Defensively, the Avalanche did well to get in front of the puck by blocking 20 shots and keeping pace with the Canes in the hitting department, racking up 31 hits compared to Carolina’s 32. Offensively, the Avs notched two power play goals on the league’s best PK unit, an accomplishment that speaks for itself.
The Hurricanes weren’t too shabby on the power play either. Carolina only converted on one of its three power play opportunities, a third-period rebound shot by right wing Andrei Svechnikov, but that lone PPG was a sign of life for a power play unit that hadn’t yet scored in the month of April.
Still, center Sebastian Aho maintained that the power play needs to be better, as converting on the other two opportunities in the first period could have changed how the game played out.
“Too late,” Aho said. “Obviously it was nice to see the power play click there, but we should have cashed in on those early ones, probably. We’ll keep working on that too.”
As the Canes await status updates on Staal and Andersen, the schedule trucks on to a road game against the Arizona Coyotes on Monday, April 19. Puck drops at 10 p.m.
