Despite an overall poor performance from the Canes, they managed to eke out a win against the Flyers in overtime. All three of Carolina’s goals came on odd-man rush opportunities, the last of which came from center Seth Jarvis who has now scored in five straight games.
With a win against third-place Philadelphia (35-26-9), the Hurricanes (44-20-6) extend the gap between themselves and the Flyers to 15 points. Carolina has now won five in a row as it continues to chase down the Rangers for first place in the Metropolitan division.
The Canes’ best player was, without a doubt, goaltender Frederik Andersen. Andersen kept the game close especially when the Flyers wore down the Hurricanes by the end of the game. The netminder stood tall for his team and made crucial saves to keep the game from getting away from them.
“We got away with one,” said head coach Rod Brind’Amour. “[Our] goalie played great. We were pretty bad to be quite honest.”
Considering all the things that could’ve gone wrong for Carolina in the first period, the Canes were fairly lucky to enter the first intermission tied at zero. A goal from Flyers’ right wing Owen Tippett was waved off for the zone entry being offside, and a lengthy 5-on-3 power play for Philadelphia was killed off.
After a flat twenty minutes to start the game, the successful penalty kill gave the Canes some energy at the end of the first and into the second.
Less than four minutes into the period, defenseman Brett Pesce broke up a transition play and sprung an attack the other way with a stretch pass to center Martin Necas. Necas found a trailing left wing Jordan Martinook who took his time and ripped a shot bar down from the slot.
In immediate response, Flyers center Scott Laughton got a breakaway opportunity with Andersen and fired a shot to the low glove side. Laughton’s 12th of the season tied the contest less than 30 seconds after Martinook broke it.
Carolina came alive in the second half of the second period, and what sparked an improvement in play was a rocket of a shot from defenseman Jalen Chatfield. In a similar fashion to the first goal, Aho entered the zone, held up and put the puck right in Chatfield’s wheelhouse to give the Canes the lead.
Chatfield’s goal was his eighth of the season, a goal total the defenseman hasn’t hit since he played in the OHL in the 2016-17 season. It’s always nice to have a defenseman who can score, but Chatfield’s consistency on the backend has separated him from the rest.
“[I’ve] been getting a lot of good passes from players,” Chatfield said. “Honestly just getting pucks to the net and good things will happen.”
He is very fundamentally sound and does all the little things right on the defensive side. And when he does make a rare mistake he often uses his incredible skating speed to minimize the damage. His pairing with defenseman Dmitry Orlov has produced one of the best pairings in the NHL, and this being the third pairing for the Canes is one of the many reasons they are near the top of the Eastern Conference.
Finding their footing in the second half of the middle frame, the Flyers put the Canes right back on their heels to start the third and finished the period outshooting the Hurricanes 16-7. With how desperate Philadelphia was playing and the amount of mistakes Carolina was making, it was only a matter of time before the Flyers tied the game back up.
Halfway through the period right wing Travis Konecny put the Flyers on the board again, this time taking advantage of a scramble in front of the net. A between-the-legs shot from center Morgan Frost missed the net but found Konecny’s tape behind the net where he wrapped around and scored.
With neither side wanting to give up a goal, the last 10 minutes were extremely gritty and physical for both teams. It was a battle between two groups who play very structured hockey and rarely stray from their game plan even if it doesn’t yield results.
It took an extra minute and a half to find a difference between the two teams, and it was Jarvis who found it. Transitioning from one end to the other, defenseman Brent Burns created a two-on-one opportunity with Jarvis who corralled a pass and scored his 26th of the year. With the overtime goal, Jarvis became the second player in Canes history to score the game-winning goal in three consecutive games.
Since the players-only meeting on Dec. 9, 2023, the Canes have accumulated a record of 15-1-2 when on the road and look to continue the run when they take on the rival Washington Capitals on March 22 at 7 p.m.
