After a rough first period saw the Carolina Hurricanes go down 2-1 to the Philadelphia Flyers, the team regrouped big time for a 6-3 win to round out their six-game road trip.
The Hurricanes outscored the Flyers 5-1 in the final 40 minutes of the game, with all five goals coming from different players. Center Sebastian Aho netted his second goal of the afternoon early in the 2nd period. A quick Philadelphia equalizer was answered by right wing Jesper Fast just 29 seconds later to tie it up again at 3-3. Center Jesperi Kotkaniemi, center Steven Lorentz and right wing Andrei Svechnikov rounded out the comeback and put the game away.
“We can score a bunch of goals,” Aho said. “There’s two points [for us]. It’s a good team we played just now; it was a great way to finish a road trip.”
The first period included plenty of offense as well, but not as much in Carolina’s favor. Despite outshooting the Flyers 17-6, the Canes found themselves down 2-1 heading into the first intermission. Ivan Provorov opened the scoring after just 50 seconds of play, and Joel Farabee made center Seth Jarvis look invisible on a short-handed breakaway that put Philadelphia up 2-1.
Goaltender Antti Raanta had some rebounding of his own to do after surrendering that pair of goals and he went to work in a pivotal second period. A go-ahead goal by Rasmus Ristolainen was the only blemish on Raanta’s post-first period play as the Finn made several big saves to keep his team on the front foot.
One glaring area of improvement for Carolina going forward is the power play. The Hurricanes simply looked uninspired and lacked creativity when up a man. Since Aho’s power play goal against Vegas on Nov. 16, the Canes have not scored once in their last 12 power-play shifts. However, the special teams production was compensated by some stellar 5-on-5 hockey, exemplified by a crisp tic-tac-toe sequence to set up Kotkaniemi for the go-ahead goal.
The scoring action dwindled in the third period, but not before Svechnikov added his name to the scoresheet, breaking his 11-game scoring drought. Even though it came in garbage time, Svech was undoubtedly delighted to find twine again.
“He wants to score every shift,” said head coach Rod Brind’Amour. “When he goes a long stretch without scoring it certainly builds on him, but that was a big goal. Early in the third, it put the game out of reach.”
The Canes return to Raleigh on Sunday, Nov. 28 for a Metropolitan Division showdown with the Washington Capitals. Puck drop is scheduled for 1 p.m.
