The Carolina Hurricanes defeated the Montreal Canadiens, the top team in the Eastern Conference, 3-2 Saturday night at PNC Arena.
The Hurricanes (9-13-4) showed great resilience, fighting back twice from deficits against the Canadiens (19-6-3), and were led by two of their highest paid players, who too often this season haven’t played to that level.
The Canadiens opened the scoring, less than three minutes into the first period on forward Daniel Carr’s first career NHL goal.
Carr quickly wrapped the puck around net, putting it past Hurricanes goalie Cam Ward before Ward was able to reach the goal post.
The goal was one Ward should have saved and was admittedly soft but Ward bounced back and had a terrific game, stopping 36 of 38 shots on net.
“It was not a good goal. It was a goal that I shouldn’t be giving up,” Ward said. “Instead of dwelling on it, you get ready for the next shot. Today, I was able to put it behind me and move on.”
The Canes continued to work hard in the first period, showing noticeably better effort than Thursday night against New Jersey, and were eventually rewarded with a goal.
Forward Jeff Skinner received a pass in the slot from forward Jordan Staal, who was circling behind the net. Skinner put a beautiful move on Montreal goalie Mike Condon, who went sprawling onto his stomach, allowing the former Calder trophy winner to roof the puck into the net.
Montreal regained the lead midway through the second period as forward Sven Andrighetto tipped a puck from defenseman Jeff Petry through the legs of Ward.
As they did in the first, the Canes showed resilience, and answered with a goal of their own only two minutes later.
“It was a good hockey game and tight going into the third,” Eric Staal said. “I liked our resilience, and the ability to stay with it to get the right result at the end of the night.”
Forward Joakim Nordstrom scored his first goal of the season and first as a Hurricane to even the game up. Nordstrom collected the puck and put it home after Condon left a juicy rebound on a backhand shot from forward Andrej Nestrasil.
The Canes scored on the play because they crashed the net hard – something they haven’t done enough of this season – putting Nordstrom in position to score.
Skinner scored his second of the night to give the Canes their first lead with less than eight minutes remaining in the third period.
Once again, the Canes took advantage of a rebound left by Condon as defenseman Brett Pesce’s slapshot from the point was stopped by Condon but Skinner batted the puck, as it was in mid air, into the net.
It was Carolina’s second goal that resulted from extra effort to get to the front of the net.
Despite a late push from Montreal, Carolina was able to hold on for a 3-2 win.
“It’s a good feeling,” Skinner said. “They’re a great team, and we knew coming in that it would be a big test. Especially after last game, we wanted to bounce back.”
