3 Takeaways: Hurricanes Rise To Challenge, Defeat Golden Knights

The Carolina Hurricanes swept the season series against the Vegas Golden Knights with a 3-2 win at Lenovo Center on Friday night.

The Canes survived an early push from Vegas and stormed back in the second and third periods to take and lead and hold it.

Here are three takeaways from the win:

Pyotr Kochetkov Bounces Back

It's no secret that heading into Friday's game, Pyotr Kochetkov's previous outing wasn't his best. The Canes fell 3-2 to the Anaheim Ducks with two of those goals against being shots that you needed to see a save on.

But it was apparent last night that Kochetkov wasn't hung up on that game whatsoever. 

Vegas was far and away the better team through the first period and a half, generating chance after chance, but Kochetkov was on his A-game and kept the team in the game, even stopping a penalty shot by Keegan Kolesar that would have given Vegas a 2-0 lead.

"He kept us in it," said Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour. "First period wasn't good... Actually, it was more that their first period was good. I mean, we were trying, they were just putting it on us. That's what a goalie can do, keep us in it."

"When you lose, you think about the next game,' Kochetkov said following his 0.935 save percentage performance. "You try to come back and do a good game. Sometimes you lose when you bad play, sometimes you good play and lose. You think always. I don't know different goalies, but if I lose, I just try to come back the next game and try to have my best game."

Adjustments

When the Hurricanes took the ice for warmups before Friday's game, it was apparent that the lines were different than how the team had been practicing. 

What people mostly noticed was Jackson Blake getting his first promotion to the top line alongside Sebastian Aho, but the key move more so was bringing Andrei Svechnikov back up to the top line.

The Golden Knights are a team with talent and size and the coaching staff was worried about how the top line of Sebastian Aho, Seth Jarvis and Jack Roslovic would handle that.

So moving Svechnikov up brought more size and physicality to the top line while also giving Blake a shot to see what he could do.

"It was really more about moving Svech back with Aho because they have a real big team," Brind'Amour said. "So I thought keeping that line the way it was would have been a little bit of a tougher matchup. Blaker also has just been playing well. Give him a chance to play with Seabass and Svech and I thought he did really well."

The move proved fruitful as the top line was one of Carolina's best, constantly dangerous and generating chances.

Another shift in warmups was sliding Jarvis down alongside Jordan Staal and Jordan Martinook. Vegas' top line of Jack Eichel, Mark Stone and Ivan Barbashev are quite the handful and the move gave Brind'Amour his best three defensive pieces all on one line.

But the adjustments didn't end there as Brind'Amour actually made a pretty subtle change midway through the game.

The Hurricanes' fourth line to start the game was Juha Jaaska, Jack Drury and Jack Roslovic and through a period and a half, they were getting buried.

Vegas' fourth line was big and heavy and the Canes' smaller trio were unable to handle them.

So Brind'Amour put together a trio of bigger, more physical forwards (Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Eric Robinson and Juha Jaaska) and all of a sudden, Carolina was winning that matchup handedly. 

"That matchup wasn't going well so I tried to get a bit bigger guys out there,' Brind'Amour admitted. "I thought actually, that line for them, was one of their best lines tonight. So that was what went into that."

Jackson Blake

The Canes rookie just continues to impress.

Blake, playing on the top line, was the Canes' leader in CF (75.86%), xGF (87.02%) and HDCF (57.14%).

He looked right at home playing with Aho and Svechnikov and navigated the offensive zone with ease even against the large-framed Vegas defense.

"Obviously those two are really good players, two of the best in the league, I think,' Blake said. "I think I can add offense to that line and help them produce. Make plays in the o-zone and I think tonight we had a lot of good looks. Obviously you always want to strive for more and stuff like that, but hopefully just continue to grow and get that connection going."

The rookie also picked up his 10th goal of the season (with a little help from Noah Hanifin) and became just the 12th rookie in team history to reach double-digit goals.

"I honestly wouldn't even have imagined being here last January," Blake said. "Obviously at school, I didn't know I was going to be there. I'm super fortunate that Rod and the coaching staff gave me an opportunity and obviously it's awesome to get there, but hopefully there's a lot more down the road this year."

Stay updated with the most interesting Carolina Hurricanes stories, analysis, breaking news and more! Tap the star to add us to your favorites on Google New