On Star Wars night, the Canes struck back against the Ducks to avenge their 6-3 loss earlier in the season with a 6-3 win of their own on home ice. Center Seth Jarvis led the way with three points, including the game’s final goal. With the win, the Canes stay hot in 2024 and have now scored six goals in three out of their four games in the new year.

“[Jarvis] is having a great year,” said head coach Rod Brind’Amour. “He’s making great plays and doing it right. He’s certainly not afraid. He’ll get in there against the big guys, you need to have that to be successful.”

After defeating the Ducks (14-26-1), Carolina (23-13-5) moves to 6-0-1 in its last seven games as they continue to find the back of the net. Although the Ducks were injury-ridden coming into the game, it has still got to feel good to score a power play goal against a team that hasn’t given one up against Carolina since 2015 and come out with two points.

The Hurricanes got off to a near perfect start in the first period. Getting to the “force-check,” Carolina was dominating puck possession and by the end of the first period out-shot Anaheim 16-1. The Ducks’ first shot-on-goal came with under five minutes left in the first — only goalie John Gibson showed up to start the game for the visitors.

“We were sleepy,” said Anaheim head coach Greg Cronin. “I have no answer for that. I don’t know what to tell you.”

A perfect start on the ice didn’t quite translate to a perfect start on the scoresheet. Gibson was getting a piece of the puck on every shot the Hurricanes gave him. With four minutes left in the first, the Canes finally broke the deadlock.

In transition, center Jordan Staal carried the puck into the offensive zone and dropped it off for Jarvis, who found a trailing defenseman Brady Skjei in the slot. Skjei capitalized on a wide-open goal and slammed the puck home. While it took 16 minutes for the Canes to get the first goal, it only took an additional 15 seconds for their lead to double.

Getting back into the zone, left wing Teuvo Teräväinen found center Sebastian Aho, who quickly set up right wing Andrei Svechnikov to one-time the puck into the back of the net. Svechnikov’s goal marks his seventh in the past six games. The tic-tac-toe goal gave Carolina more goals than the Ducks had shots on net.

It took just over 20 minutes for the Ducks to wake up, and early on in the second, they were flying. Twenty-five seconds into the second period, the Ducks cut the lead in half thanks to center Isac Lundeström. After ex-Cane left wing Brock McGinn entered the zone off a stretch pass, a scrum for the puck occurred and eventually, it found Lundeström at the top of the crease where he made no mistake and put it home.

A minute and a half later, the Hurricanes responded — Jarvis earned his second primary assist of the night, finding a streaking left wing Jordan Martinook who went backhand-forehand past Gibson to score his 69th career goal in his 600th career game.

“Looking back at the way I got here, it’s pretty cool,” Martinook said. “To go from the start where I was just happy to be here when I was breaking in, and now I have my kids here watching, and it just kind of shows the journey that life’s taken me.”

Jarvis and Martinook weren’t quite out of the action just yet. A couple of minutes later after Jarvis drew a tripping penalty, Anaheim’s defenseman Robert Hagg shoved Jarvis to the ice and chaos ensued right in front of the Canes’ bench.

Staal and Martinook came flying in to make sure Hagg and the rest of the Ducks knew Jarvis wasn’t to be messed with.

“I really appreciate that,” Jarvis said. “I know that I have guys who have my back, and it makes it easier to play out there. … That’s why those two guys are so beloved on our team. They’re willing to do that for me, and they didn’t have to.”

Around halfway through the second, the Ducks scored two quick goals of their own to stun the Caniacs, with the first coming from center Ryan Strome. On a puck that was deflected up high in the air, Strome waited for it to fall below the crossbar and knock it out of midair and past Hurricanes goaltender Pyotr Kochetkov.

Less than a minute later it was the Duck’s 2024 All-Star selection who got their third goal of the night. Two seconds into an Anaheim power play, Right wing Frank Vatrano snapped a shot off the faceoff draw and past Kochetkov’s glove.

As Vatrano celebrated his 20th of the season, the Caniacs were stunned and silenced. What was once a comfortable lead had turned into a tied game at 3-3 that looked like it was slipping away from Carolina.

If things weren’t already bad enough, it quickly got worse for the Canes. With six minutes left in the middle frame, Kochetkov suffered a collision with a Ducks player and had to be assisted off the ice by two Canes players. Kochetkov had been playing lights out and was a big reason the Hurricanes have had a lot of success in recent games.

Backup goaltender Antti Raanta stepped up to the plate and completed the game, stopping all four shots that he faced throughout the rest of the game.

Thirty seconds later, left wing Michael Bunting — with his back to the net — fired a backhanded pass to right wing Stefan Noesen, who quickly collected his rebound in tight and backhanded the puck past Gibson.

Then, 14 seconds after that, the gloves were dropped. After Ducks center Sam Carrick boarded Canes center Jack Drury and left wing Brendan Lemieux answered the bell. The two went at it, but with the home crowd behind him, Lemieux was able to land punch after punch before Carrick took him down to the ice.

Lemieux got the whole arena on their feet and loud as he skated away to the box with stick taps coming from the bench. Although both Carrick and Lemieux got five for fighting, Carolina was awarded the man advantage and Drury got his revenge.

In the final seconds of the power play, Teravainen found Noesen near the goal line, who set up Drury on a one-timer in the slot that extended the Canes’ lead back to two. After giving up three goals in the first half of the period, a fight win and power-play goal swung the momentum back in Carolina’s favor.

“That power-play goal was huge,” Brind’Amour said. “That was a good answer to the push that they had.”

The Ducks pushed the pace in the second period, outshooting the Canes 12-9 in the second 20 minutes. Although a solid performance in the second, the Ducks once again fell flat in the third period and only put three shots on goal.

The final period saw the Hurricanes playing more conservatively than they had in the first two periods. Jarvis tallied the Canes’ only goal in the third on a tip in front of the net.

The Hurricanes will look to extend their point streak on Saturday, Jan. 13 when they take on the Pittsburgh Penguins at 7 p.m. at PNC Arena.