Recap: Canes top Red Wings in wild offensive affair

Fans inside of PNC Arena Friday night were treated to a wildly entertaining 10-goal affair, as the Carolina Hurricanes topped the Detroit Red Wings 7-3 to win their third straight game.

The Canes have been nearly unbeatable at home so far this season, as Friday’s win pushed Carolina to 6-1 on the season in PNC. After a somewhat quiet 1-1 first period, the Hurricanes and the Red Wings exploded for six goals during a carnival-like second period. Carolina added a goal at the beginning of the third period and then an empty netter at the end.

Carolina got two goals from forward Sebastian Aho, forward Andrei Svechnikov moved his goal streak to three games and forward Brock McGinn tallied his first of the season to push the Hurricanes past Detroit. The Red Wings main scoring threat was Anthony Mantha, who scored twice.

It wasn’t the prettiest of wins for the Hurricanes, as the defense looked shaky at times, but Carolina found a way to get it done against a Detroit team that has struggled mightily this season. Petr Mrazek was the winning goaltender, stopping 28 of the 31 shots he faced.

In net for the Red Wings, Jimmy Howard was pulled from the game in the second period after allowing five goals on 21 shots. Replacement Jonathan Bernier gave up a goal in the third period and finished with 13 saves.

The Hurricanes broke through seven minutes into the first period, as Svechnikov continued on his scoring tear. Playing 4-on-4 hockey following offsetting penalties to Patrik Nemeth and Nino Niederreiter, Svechnikov finished off a great sequence from defenseman Jaccob Slavin to put the Canes up 1-0.

Slavin made a great read on the puck to keep it in the offensive zone, firing a shot off Howard from a tight angle. Slavin collected the puck and fired a pass across the zone to Aho, who laid it off to defenseman Dougie Hamilton. Slavin attacked the net again and received a pass from Hamilton before beating Dylan Larkin with a burst of speed.

Slavin laid the puck off to Svechnikov in the slot, and the young Russian forward didn’t miss the open net. Svechnikov backhanded the feed from Slavin past Howard, marking his fifth goal in the last three games.

The Red Wings answered back late in the first period, as Andreas Athanasiou and Mantha linked up for a great goal. Athanasiou made a slick move with the puck to beat Hamilton, and then fired a beautiful pass to Mantha over the sticks of Hamilton and Teuvo Teravainen. Mantha calmly finished off the one-timer, as the Red Wings brought things to 1-1.

Carolina made it 2-1 less than 30 seconds into the second period, as Aho netted his fourth of the season off a rebound. Slavin made another great play to help create the goal, keeping the puck in the offensive zone and firing it towards Warren Foegele in front of net. Foegele fought through contact to put a weak shot off Howards’ blocker, which Aho collected a coolly slotted into the net.

Detroit challenged the call on the ice for goaltender interference, as Foegele did make some contact with Howard, but Aho’s goal stood. The challenge ended up costing the Red Wings greatly though, as Carolina made it 3-1 on the ensuing power play that came from the failed challenge.

Niederreiter got the puck, spun towards net and started hacking at the puck to try and power it past Howard. The effort paid off, as Niederreiter pushed it through Howard’s legs for his second goal of the year. The goal was originally waved off on the ice, but after a review it was awarded to Niederreiter.

Carolina almost made it 4-1 a couple minutes later, but a beautiful team goal was taken off the board for offside. Mrazek made a phenomenal save to start a 2-on-1 for Carolina, where Aho made the perfect pass to Foegele who fired a great shot past Howard. However, Detroit decided to challenge again, and this time it paid off for the Wings as Foegele was ruled offside.

Detroit took advantage of some new life, making it 3-2 on a power-play goal from Mantha. Aho went to the box for high sticking, and Mantha fired a one-timer off the faceoff past Mrazek to bring the Red Wings within one. The power-play goal ended a streak of 12 straight successful penalty kills for the Canes, dating back to Oct. 16 against the San Jose Sharks.

The Canes bumped their lead back up to two goals just 26 seconds later, as Necas scored his third of the year to make it 4-2. Ryan Dzingel brought the puck into the offensive zone and skated past two Detroit defenders, before firing a pass right to the stick of Necas. Necas took a slightly awkward shot, but was still able to roof it past Howard.

Aho picked up his second goal of the night just past the midway point of the second period. Hamilton fired wide, and Aho collected it off the glass and put it past Howard. The goal chased Howard from the game, as Bernier came into relieve the starting netminder.

Detroit made it 5-3 to wrap up the absolute rollercoaster of a second period, as Tyler Bertuzzi redirected a pass from Larkin past Mrazek.

Carolina opened up the third period with its sixth goal of the night, as McGinn scored shorthanded following a penalty on Jordan Staal. A fortunate bounce gave McGinn the puck, and he held onto it long enough with a nice toe drag to clear a lane to beat Bernier.

Things calmed down as the third period went along, as Mrazek and the Canes held Detroit off the board for the remainder of the game. The Hurricanes added one more late in the game on an empty netter, as Teravainen made it 7-3. Slavin picked up his 100th NHL assist on the final goal.

Carolina will be right back in action Saturday, as the Canes host the New Jersey Devils to wrap up a four-game homestand.

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Postgame Quotes

Rod Brind’Amour

(On coaching in a “track meet” game) “It was rough. It was an entertaining game for the fans, which is great for the game but not so much for the coaching aspect of it. It was kind of loosely played. But, it’s also good that we can win games like that. It goes up and down, it’s a little bit of a track meet, but we were able to put enough in to win obviously.”

(On Brock McGinn’s shorthanded goal) “Obviously it was a big moment in the game, because it could have gone the other way. The momentum could have switched. That kind of put the game away, so it was a huge play.”

(On the pace of the game) “You know what’s going on, and it’s hard because you want to stay above your guys. When you pick something off or you go the other way, there is a chance there. But the problem is, when it doesn’t go their guys are hanging back there. We don’t want to be trading chance for chance. Our goalie was really good, Petr did a great job of holding us in and allowing us at times to get to our game. Right out of the second period I thought we had a couple of shifts that looked right, and we got a goal on one of them. He’s been holding us in and allowing us to stick with what we can do.”

(On Sebastian Aho) “I thought he had a great game. I thought he was a lot more impactful. We’re going to be hard on him because we expect so much, but I think it’s good for him to get on the scoresheet. And he’s around the net, that’s where you’ve got to get to eventually if you want to put pucks in the net. He was better.”

Sebastian Aho

(On facing Detroit) “They’re a fast team with high-end players up front, so we had to be all there. We did a pretty good job. We took that away from them. We forechecked pretty well.”

(On getting a goal right away in the second period) “It was nice. I think it wasn’t our best first period, but it was a big goal.”

(On the opening goal of the second period setting the tone) “That’s sometimes how it goes. When you score one you score a second right away. It was good.”

Brock McGinn

(On his shorthanded goal) “We just had an odd-man rush there and the D kind of slid, so I just kind of out-waited him and put it on the net. Fortunately, I was able to beat the goalie there.”

(On Petr Mrazek’s performance) “He’s the backbone of our team right now. He makes so many big saves that we can just feed off of. We just have to use our skill and our speed to put some goals up for him.”

(On how the win sets the tone for the weekend) “I think we just have to continue going on here. I think we’ve had a good homestand here, and we’ve just got to come out and play hard in the first period tomorrow and carry on the energy.”

(On scoring twice quickly in the second period) “I don’t think the first period was our best period, but we came out in that second and kind of got a little bit of jump and got those couple of goals to kind of have a little bit of security. That definitely helps us out and we just have to stay and play our game and we’ll continue to get our goals.”