The Carolina Hurricanes took care of business on the road Monday, Oct. 17 with a 5-1 dismantling of the Seattle Kraken.
The usual suspects led the charge for Carolina (3-0-0). Center Sebastian Aho and right wing Andrei Svechnikov each registered three points as the top two lines skated circles around Seattle (1-2-1).
“You need your best players to be the best players if you want to have any type of success in this league,” said head coach Rod Brind’Amour. “So far, those guys have been. Three games in but they certainly have done their job. So we need to keep that going.”
Aho, Svech and company got the job done by making noise in the opposing crease for Kraken goalie Philipp Grubauer. Utilizing tip-ins, screens and rebounds, the Canes succeeded swimmingly in this regard to secure a stranglehold on the scoreline.
“It was nice to get ahead of the game,” Brind’Amour said. “It allows you to have a couple of bad shifts here or there versus if you get behind one. Then you have to go back, suddenly that can be the game, so nice to get that goal.”
The winning effort also featured a couple of firsts. After going 0-for-5 in their first two games, the Hurricanes finally got their power play going with a pair of PPGs in the second period. Defenseman Brent Burns bagged his first point in a Canes sweater, assisting an Aho score for Carolina’s first power play goal of the season.
Svechnikov notched his first goal of the evening on the power play to reassert the Canes’ control over of the game. Seattle’s Andre Burakovsky spoiled Carolina’s formerly perfect penalty kill percentage with a PPG at the 13:06 mark, but Svechnikov buried his own power play goal just 18 seconds later to give his team a 3-1 lead. Eager to join in on the party of firsts, right wing Stefan Noesen notched his first point as a Hurricane with a secondary assist on Svech’s goal.
“We scored a couple, right? That’s better,” Aho said. “I think we moved the puck pretty well and we tried to outwork their PK. They were big goals in those times so we’ll try to build on that.”
Svechnikov swiftly extended the lead to 4-1 by going from no goals to two in 1:10, becoming the ninth-fastest player to score back-to-back goals since the franchise’s relocation. Carolina took that three-goal cushion into the second intermission, which helped goaltender Freddie Andersen and the Hurricanes considerably in the third period when the Kraken shot more than in the first two periods combined. Left wing Jordan Martinook also scored his first goal of the season with 5:19 to go to finalize the scoreline.
Andersen had a steady game in the crease as well. His only blemish on the evening was the power play goal by Burakovsky, but that play was more a case of great execution by Seattle than a misplay by Andersen. Excluding the seven-second span between the faceoff and Kraken goal, Andersen looked cool as a cucumber on his way to 22 saves in the victory.
The Caners will continue their West-coast excursion Thursday, Oct. 20, going north of the border to take on the Edmonton Oilers. Puck drop is set for 9 p.m.
Centerman Sebastian Aho takes the puck up the ice against the Winnipeg Jets in PNC Arena on Thursday, April 21, 2022. Aho assisted on one of the Canes' goals in a 4-2 comeback victory against the Jets.
