In a duel of the fates, the Carolina Hurricanes defeated the Minnesota Wild 6-2 as Sebastian Aho netted his third career hat trick.
One would have thought that the nightly promotion was for the Finnish Independence Day, which was only the day prior, as Aho finished the night with five points including his three goals and with linemate and countryman Teuvo Teravainen having three straight primary assists.
“I guess I try to score five points every night, but it’s a little harder than that,” Aho said. “You want to score a lot of points and produce for the team, but you don’t think about, ‘I have to score a hat trick right now,’ or something like that. But, tonight was one of those nights were I got all of the bounces.”
The Canes started already seemingly half-asleep and their lazy efforts resulted in Minnesota shooting first as Ryan Donato picked up the rebound that Petr Mrazek had kicked right back to him and shot it in.
Carolina tightened up after its slow start and along with better play came a goal. Cruising through the slot Lucas Wallmark picked up a feed from behind the net by Ryan Dzingel and went bar-down to tie up the game.
Not long after the Hurricanes were awarded a 5-on-3 power play after Aho was tripped up and knocked back down a second time. Two-man advantages can be huge momentum swingers either way, but the Canes made sure that it stayed with them.
Teravainen showed off his elite vision, skating the puck around before placing it precisely on Svechnikov’s tape which was planted firmly on the goal line to give the Hurricanes the high ground.
Aho moved the Hurricanes even further past the Wild with another beautiful sequence alongside Teravainen. Aho entered the zone and dropped the puck back to Teravainen as he skated to the other side of the ice, turning his body for the shot. Teravainen saw it all the way and set up Aho with a perfect pass right in his wheelhouse that Aho crushed past Wild goaltender Alex Stalock.
“We’ve been together for so long now and it’s pretty awesome to have him here,” Aho said on Teravainen. “It’s been all my NHL career with him so it’s pretty special… It just shows how smart he is and an unbelievable passer. It was just a couple of tap-ins for me.”
It wasn’t just Aho who was commending his linemate, head coach Rod Brind’Amour also had some high praise for the prolific playmaker.
“The elite players, they know where everyone is on the ice, and he’s one of those,” Brind’Amour said. “He’s a playmaker. The best players, they don’t need to look around and he’s had that ability. He was special tonight for sure.”
“His game is generally just good all the time. Whether he is scoring or not, he’s usually getting chances or creating them… To me, over the last couple of years, it’s the improvement in his overall game, the defensive side of things, where he has really stepped up.”
The Wild refused to surrender and attempted one last maneuver to push past the Hurricanes as Matts Zuccarello streamed down the ice and ripped a wrister past Mrazek cutting the lead to one.
However, the Hurricanes still had the high ground and it was Aho who cut down the Wild. Yet again, it was Teravainen’s elite vision on display as he put the puck right to Aho who merely had to get his stick on it to redirect it into the net.
“He’s good at finding some open ice and getting open for me,” Teravainen said on Aho. “If I see anyone open I usually try to pass to them… Overall we are pretty good together. We read each other pretty well and he’s pretty fast and thinks fast on the ice… It feels easy sometimes.”
If the Wild had anything left, it was “Steady Eddie” Joel Edmundson who shattered the remaining batches of resistance. Turning off his targeting computer, Edmundson forced a rocket of a slapshot straight through traffic and in.
With the game ticking down, Aho finally reached the rank of master as he notched his third goal, shorthanded, for the hat trick. He beat out a Wild defender at the blue line and nailed the shot into the empty net to finally finish off Minnesota.
The Canes will now head off on a long road trip across the ‘galaxy’ that will see them face off against five teams in 10 days as they travel from Colorado into and through Western Canada.
“It’s going to be a pretty good road trip,” Teravainen said on the upcoming five-game international road trip. “A lot of good teams are on there so we just got to go out there and keep fighting game by game.”
