Recap: Hurricanes Can’t Stop Scoring Against the Islanders — Wait, What?

There was the first ten minutes or so. There was the last ten minutes or so.

And in between, there were a bunch of goals.

Eight goals from the Hurricanes may make you pinch yourself. I caught myself yelling in anger (“Where has this been all season?”) and jubilee (“WOOOOOOO!”).

But if they were going to do it against anyone, this season tells us the Islanders are a fit opponent for a dogging.

In the past two meetings, the Hurricanes have put up 12 goals on the Islanders (7 and 5, respectively).

The Islanders have put 4 goals on the Hurricanes in their three meetings -- a score normally high enough to best the offensively-plagued Hurricanes. But they leave the night 0-2-1 in the series.

If this article took on a recap of every goal of the night, it may be considered a long form story. So instead, here are a couple points of interest:

• Jaccob Slavin scored more goals on the night (3) than he has so far this season (2). He scored in each period, including a short-handed goal in the second period. Justin Faulk also scored 2 goals, which makes tonight the first game since 10/22/2009 that any NHL team has had two defensemen score more than once apiece (per Elias Sports Bureau).
• Hurricanes PA announcer Wade Minter, bless him, is devoted to making road goal calls on Twitter, even enlisting some help from the peanut gallery for Slavin’s third:

• The Hurricanes shot 24.2% on the night. That’s a better percentage than their power play goal percentage on the season.
• Eight goals is the most allowed by the Islanders in a home game since 10/27/2007. Who did that? Oh, the Hurricanes (per @OptaGordie).
• Since the 2005 lockout ended, there have been fifteen games in this series (out of 46 games total) that have featured one team scoring at least five goals. The Canes have been responsible for eleven of those games, including a nine-spot, two eights, and two sevens.
• Some useful trivia from a WRAL sports anchor whose first name fits the pattern:

• Jeff Skinner’s second goal of the night was the Canes’ first penalty-shot goal of the season on their first attempt. The Canes have only had four penalty shots awarded to them over the past three seasons, with Skinner attempting two (missing on one last season). The other two, both successful, were scored by Elias Lindholm last year and Brad Malone (?!?!?!) two years ago.
• And don’t forget — the Islanders still scored 4 goals. The two teams meet again tomorrow, and the Hurricanes may want to discuss how the Islanders scored 4 in 27 shots before taking the ice.

Rank The Performances

Here’s your chance to weigh in on how you think the team performed tonight. Upvote the players you think played well and downvote the ones who didn’t.