The Carolina Hurricanes saw another win streak snapped by the Florida Panthers with a 4-3 overtime loss on Saturday, Jan. 8. The loss broke a run of five Canes wins and nine in their last 10 games.
With goaltender Antti Raanta out with an upper-body injury, Carolina (24-7-2) trotted out goaltender Alex Lyon from the taxi squad for his second start of the season. On the other end of the ice, the Panthers (23-7-5) relied on veteran netminder Sergei Bobrovsky to hold the Hurricanes at bay while his skaters ambushed the inexperienced Lyon.
“I didn’t feel that sharp,” Lyon said. “I didn’t feel really that I played that well, but at the same time, I felt like I was effective at stopping the puck. Sometimes that’s just how it goes. You’re not always going to be perfect technically and sometimes it’s just about trying to get the job done. So it kind of turned into that a little bit tonight.”
Florida jumped to a quick 1-0 lead by beating Lyon just 1:05 into the first period. Although left wing Teuvo Teräväinen knotted it up at 1-1 with a power play goal a couple of minutes later, Florida’s ascent to a 3-1 lead early in the second period had the Canes playing catch-up for much of the game.
Head coach Rod Brind’Amour switched up the lines quite a bit starting the second period, kickstarting his team’s offense and giving the Hurricanes a chance to win. Although Carolina could not claw its way into the win column, the Canes were at least able to force overtime and salvage a point thanks to Brind’Amour adjustments.
“We really didn’t do much of anything and kind of shot ourselves in the foot coming out like that,” said center Seth Jarvis. “So when Roddy switched up the lines and mixed it up, everyone kind of took a deep breath and there was a new sign of life. Everyone, all lines, woke up and started trying to get back into the game.”
Defenseman Brady Skjei continued his recent involvement in the offense as well. Skjei put his squad back on track with a bullet from the blue line to beat Bobrovsky later in the second period. It was Skjei’s sixth point in three games, an impressive run of form for a defenseman. Jarvis followed up with a game-tying goal early in the third period, a slick breakaway that split the Florida defense before outpacing Bobrovsky on his right side to eventually force overtime.
The two teams remained deadlocked for the rest of regulation despite plenty of jostling to try and gain some sort of edge. In the end, it was Florida’s Anthony Duclair who sealed the deal in overtime, pouncing on a bad pass by Skjei and outmaneuvering Lyon for the game-winner.
The Canes now get a couple of days to regroup before a road game against the Philadelphia Flyers at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 11. Brind’Amour will hope that his players perform better than they did against the Panthers.
“We had a lot of guys who didn’t play well, I’ll just leave it at that,” Brind’Amour said. “It was tough to find a handful of guys that you could say, ‘Wow, they’re on their game tonight.’ [When we’re] playing a team like that, and we’re not sharp, that’s gonna be tough.”
