The Carolina Hurricanes bounced back from an early two-goal deficit, but could not get the job done in a 4-2 loss to the Arizona Coyotes at PNC Arena Friday night. The Canes have now lost four in a row and have one win in their last 10 games.
It was another frustrating night offensively for the Canes (25-26-10), who simply could not seem to find the back of the net on several good chances. Starter Cam Ward made several big saves against the Coyotes (23-34-7), but could not get the run support he needed and was seemingly hung out to dry on all three goals against.
The Canes got some golden opportunities in the game’s open minutes, including a backhander off the goal post from forward Phil Di Giuseppe and forward Elias Lindholm missing wide with a backhand chance on an open net, but the team could not find the back of the cage.
“We never led, that would give you a lead,” head coach Bill Peters said. “To me those are huge plays. The urgency, though, could have been better. We could have been harder at the net. A couple of those point shots are coming and everyone’s at the outside.”
The Coyotes struck first a little more than halfway into the first period. Arizona forward Shane Doan made a beautiful backhand pass to forward Christian Dvorak at the far post, who one-timed it past Ward for a 1-0 lead.
The Canes fell behind 2-0 with 2:30 to play in the first, as Coyotes defenseman Alex Goligoski was left wide open in the dead slot and went bar-down on Ward for a two-goal Arizona lead.
The Canes cut the lead in half with less than a minute to play in the first; defenseman Jaccob Slavin wristed a shot from the point off a faceoff win and forward Lee Stempniak tipped it past Coyotes netminder Louis Domingue to make it 2-1.
“We just have to keep playing consistently,” Slavin said. “We have spurts in our game here where we’re dominating play; we’ve got to play a full 60 [minutes] like that. I think that’s when we’ll start breaking through.”
Carolina wasted little time tying things up in the second period; forward Jordan Staal cashed in a sharp cross-crease pass from forward Teravainen to make it a 2-2 game a minute and a half into the middle frame.
“It’s got to be mistake free,” Staal said. “We’ve got to bring more intensity, more speed and bury our chances. We’re kind of excited just to get some shots on net, but we need to get around the net and get some greasy goals, get in front of the goalie’s eyes, all the dirty stuff that we’ve kind of gotten away from. We’ve been more perimeter-based as of late.”
Ward kept the game tied about seven minutes into the third with a phenomenal save, flipping into a double-pad stack to deny Coyotes forward Radim Vrbata of the go-ahead goal.
Unfortunately for the Canes, the Coyotes cashed in shortly after, as Doan picked off a pass behind the net from Canes defenseman Ryan Murphy that was intended for defenseman Klas Dahlbeck, who found Coyotes forward Jordan Martinook with a perfect centering feed and Martinook made no mistake for a 3-2 lead with 10:58 to play.
“We gave up five shots in the third,” Peters said. “We turned it over on the game winner. You turn pucks over in tough spots and bad things happen. We did turn too many pucks over in both the offensive zone, a little bit light, allowing them some transition opportunities. Then the game winner is off a D-zone turnover.”
Forward Jeff Skinner took an interference penalty with 2:37 remaining, putting the Canes down a man for most of the time they would have used to try and tie it up.
Doan iced the game with an empty-net goal with 58.3 to play to put the Coyotes up 4-2.
The loss continues the Canes’ free fall after a strong run of hockey to get into the playoff picture in mid-January. On Jan. 17, the team had a chance to move into the playoff picture with a win. Since then, the Canes are 4-11-3 and looking at a familiar scenario of playing out the string, needing some kind of miracle to end their playoff drought.
“We just take it one day at a time here, one game at time,” Slavin said. “We have a lot of games, every other day here and back-to-back, so we’ve just got to bring it every night and try and get the two points.”
The Hurricanes and Coyotes will get very familiar with each other this weekend, as the teams will meet again in Arizona Sunday night.
