It’s never easy to win after a week-long break — even more so when taking on the top team in the NHL. The Carolina Hurricanes faced this challenge and fell to the Vancouver Canucks 3-2 in the team’s first game back from the All-Star Break.
The Canes (28-16-5) had the opportunity to start the second half of the 2023-24 season off strong, welcoming the Canucks (34-11-5) to PNC Arena. While Carolina is ranked 2nd and 4th in the league in power play goals and penalty kills, respectively, the Canes’ special teams struggled to keep the Canucks at bay.
“I thought they played really good,” said center Sebastian Aho. “Especially in the first half of the game. I thought maybe [they were] better off to start but that’s the game going on. I thought there were two really good hockey teams playing each other.”
With the buzzer sounding to signal the start of the first period, the home crowd hoped for a strong start to the first game back. Instead, it didn’t see a Hurricanes’ shot on goal until two minutes had passed into the period with the puck spending the majority of its time in the Canes’ zone. Aho was sent to the penalty box on an early tripping call, putting the Canucks up a man.
Despite being down a man, the Canes took the puck and ran with it. Left wing Jordan Martinook lit the siren up about 30 seconds after the power play started, putting the Canes up 1-0 less than five minutes into the game. Martinook’s goal marks his eighth of the season and first since Jan. 24.
Both defenses were on their toes throughout the first period, but the Vancouver backline was far more physical than Carolina’s. By the end of the period, the Canucks dealt out 16 hits and finished with 12 shots on goal. Carolina was called on another penalty with about four minutes remaining in the period, which led to a Vancouver goal on a redirected mid-air shot from Elias Lindholm, his first since being traded to the Canucks from the Calgary Flames.
“We needed to have a little more urgency,” Martinook said. “[We need] to be able to withstand some pressure and go and do what they were doing to us against them in the first and second. In the third, we figured out we were pushing as hard as we could.”
Aho and center Martin Necas got their team buzzing early into the second period with multiple attempts on Vancouver netminder Thatcher Demko but were unable to beat him. Tensions flared during the frame when right wing Stefan Noesen went a period of time without his stick and still played solid defense.
Vancouver returned to the scorecard with another power play goal from Lindholm via a cross-ice pass sequence, putting the Canucks up 2-1. It wouldn’t take long for the Canes to tie the game back up though, with Aho getting his first of the night 20 seconds into a power play to make it 2-2. Center Seth Jarvis assisted the goal and is now one assist shy of his career-high of 25 in one season.
The third period displayed the Canes’ grit and determination. Nevertheless, Vancouver got back in the lead with an open-net opportunity when Hurricanes’ netminder Pyotr Kochetkov was sliding from one end of the crease to the other. Center J.T. Miller took that chance to make it 3-2 four minutes into the period.
“Maybe it’s just a bad bounce,” said head coach Rod Brind’Amour. “Randomness like this in hockey, that’s just what happens sometimes. That was a tough one that went right on their tape and it bounces again right to their guy, and he taped it in. That was a tough one.”
Carolina caught up to Vancouver in shots on goal through some missed opportunities that went wide of the net. Center Jesperi Kotkaniemi missed a scoring opportunity after sliding down the ice and was greeted with a wide-open shot, but he couldn’t execute. The Canes fought hard for overtime, keeping the puck almost exclusively in Canucks zone, but were unable to send the game into extra time.
The Hurricanes will stay at home in PNC Arena to take on the Colorado Avalanche on Thursday, Feb. 8 at 7 p.m..
