Advertisement

The Hurricanes found a spark. Five takeaways from Carolina’s win over the Flyers

Five takeaways from the Carolina Hurricanes’ 6-3 win Friday over the Philadelphia Flyers to end a six-game road trip and a two-game losing streak:

What’s the best way to end a scoring drought? Scoring four times in a period is one way. It’s also the way the Canes used Friday in surging into a second-period lead.

Sebastian Aho, who had scored in the first, won the draw to open the second and then ripped a shot past goalie Carter Hart at 23 seconds of the period. Jesper Fast, Jesperi Kotkaniemi and then Steven Lorentz all scored for a 5-3 lead. Nine shots in the period, four goals — for the Canes, that will work. It also came after scoring two goals in the past two games on 59 shots.

Andrei Svechnikov, who had been without a goal the past 11 games, scored in the third as the Canes had 14 players on the score sheet.

The Canes took a cross-country flight Thursday from Seattle, did not have a morning skate Friday and had an afternoon start against the Flyers at the Wells Fargo Center.

But after two losses -- in overtime to San Jose and then in regulation against the Kraken — the Canes had enough left to finish out their longest road trip by beating a Metro Division team. No jet lag, no late-game lapse. Carolina was 4-1-1 on the trip, collecting nine of the 12 points.

Gauging goaltender interference is always a fickle, at times befuddling thing in the NHL. It all in the eye of the beholder. That, in turn, makes a coach’s challenge dicey at times — and did for Brind’Amour in Friday’s game.

The Flyers’ Ivan Provorov scored 50 seconds into the game. It was clear forward Sean Couturier was in the crease and appeared to impede goalie Antti Raanta. Enough for interference? Brind’Amour lost the challenge, but the Canes did then kill off the ensuing delay-of-game penalty.

A few games ago, Brind’Amour had a line of Aho centering Svechnikov and rookie Seth Jarvis, and it looked pretty dynamic. Brind’Amour then switched to Jordan Martinook and Jarvis with Aho, which was quizzical. On Friday, it was Svechnikov and Jarvis with Jordan Staal.

The best change for Carolina was having Teuvo Teravainen back with Aho. The line clicked for a first-period goal as Aho scored his ninth of the season after some forechecking pressure from Teravainen and Martin Necas. Aho and Teravainen read off each so well it’s almost as if they’re playing with the same hockey mind.

Aho nearly completed a hat trick later in the second period when Hart wandered out of net and left Aho an opening. Call it a near-miss for Aho.

The power play has become an ongoing problem for the Canes. Make it five straight games without a power-play goal. But that’s only half the problem. The Canes often aren’t drawing many penalties, either.

On the Canes’ first power play Friday, they were tentative and did not have a shot on goal. The best looks came from Jarvis, the rookie. The second power play was even worse, for the Canes and Jarvis, as the Flyers’ Joel Farabee grabbed the puck, danced around Jarvis and beat Raanta to score shorthanded.

The Canes were 0-for-4 on the power play Friday and now are 0-for-11 in the past five games. That’s getting stale.