Hurricanes Bounce Back For Dominant, Physical Win Over Devils

The Carolina Hurricanes desperately needed a game where their efforts bore fruit and Saturday night at Lenovo Center, they got that game.

The Hurricanes cashed in a five-goal performance in a massive bounce-back, 5-2 win over the New Jersey Devils, the 300th career win for head coach Rod Brind'Amour.

The Canes dominated the pace of play almost from start to finish, much similar to the game the previous night.

Related: 'You Step Up For Your Teammates': Rod Brind'Amour, Dmitry Orlov, Sean Walker, Jackson Blake

Over the past two games combined, the Canes outshot the Devils 72-46 and outchanced them 146-95. So the game play remained similar, the only difference was that this time, the team actually managed to finish their chances.

It was also the most physical game Carolina has played in years with a total of 41 hits thrown by the home team. The last time they had that many hits in a game was 2022, yet again when they played the Devils.

But just as its been apt to go as of late, the team needed to battle back from a deficit twice.

New Jersey picked up their first tally after Paul Cotter stripped Jesperi Kotkaniemi in the neutral zone for an easy, in-alone breakaway score and then to start the second period, Ondrej Palat scored an easy tap-in following a set play off of a faceoff win.

But Carolina kept with it and were finally rewarded for their effort and tenacity.

"Playing really well and not getting any results is kind of the way it's been going for us," said Carolina coach Rod Brind'Amour. "I thought not changing our game, that was key. Even though we gave them kind of a weird one in the neutral zone for a breakaway and then kind of a weird play off of the faceoff. So just a couple things that really just didn't go our way, but I just liked the way we just kept playing our game and kind of got rewarded."

Dmitry Orlov got the party started with a 92.2mph bomb from below the left-circle dot to initially tie the game up with just 30 seconds remaining in the second period.

Then Sebastian Aho got a quick response goal just 51 seconds after Palat's.

The game really turned though following Timo Meier's knee-to-knee hit on Martin Necas midway through the third period.

Luckily Necas was able to return following the hit, but it still resulted in a major penalty to Meier and Carolina was able to capitalize on the tail-end of it with rookie Jackson Blake tipping home a Kotkaniemi shot to snap a 13-game goal drought.

From there, the rout was on as Jack Roslovic finished off a beautiful Seth Jarvis feed and then grabbed to empty-netter to secure the win for Carolina.

"I think the message was just to stick with it," said Sean Walker. "I think, again, the whole night we played really good even when they scored their first goal. It was just the way it was going, but I think overall we were playing just a really solid game and everybody was just buying into the game plan and again, you don't want those to go in obviously early in the period, but we just stuck with it, stuck to the game plan and got our own goals."

However, before the game was finished, Lenovo Center's public enemy #1, Erik Haula, boarded Orlov into the endboards from behind resulting in yet another scuffle and with Orlov also taking matters into his own hands and taking Haula down to the ice.

"I think it was a dirty hit and I wasn't happy with that," Orlov said. "I didn't think it was two minutes, I thought it should have been more than that. But we got even and I got two minutes too, but I didn't hit him. I just grabbed him and told a couple of words."

Additional Notes

• Shayne Gostisbehere didn't play tonight due to an upper-body injury, so instead Ty Smith drew in for his Hurricanes debut. He registered 16:23 of ice time and quarterbacked the first power play unit.
  
  Brind'Amour on Smith: "That's a big jump when he hasn't played a game with us all year. Had him kind of bouncing around with the roster stuff. But he's got a great attitude. I think that's part of why guys really root for him because he's been really positive around here and I'm not glad that we had to use him because obviously we have an injury and Ghost is a big part of what we're doing, but he stepped in really well.
  
  

• Speaking of Gostisbehere, he was in a sling last night up on press row, and Brind'Amour says he'll be going for testing on Sunday.
  
  

• Seth Jarvis had the first three-assist game of his career.
  
  

• After both the Meier and Haula hits, the first player to step in and throw their weight around was Jesperi Kotkaniemi. On top of standing up for his teammates, the Finn was credited with six hits on the night and despite the tough turnover, it's moments like that that show what sort of impact he can have in games.