Hurricanes Blow Early Lead, Fall to Flyers 5-3

RALEIGH — Winners of four straight games, the Carolina Hurricanes looked to match their season-long five-game streak that opened the season.

It didn’t happen, though. After an excellent start, the Canes went onto blow a 2-0 lead and ultimately fall to the Philadelphia Flyers by a final score of 5-3 at PNC Arena on Thursday night.

Carolina looked dominant out of the box, managing to get two pucks by Brian Elliott in the first five minutes.

A strong forecheck from the Hurricanes’ top line resulted in a centering feed from Teuvo Teravainen to Sebastian Aho, and Aho snuck his shot through the legs of Elliott at the top of the crease and gave the Canes a 1-0 lead.

30 seconds later, Jakub Voracek took a tripping penalty and gave the Canes another opportunity to strike. And strike they did. Teravainen rifled a wrist shot off the post and in from the top of the right circle on the man advantage to extend Carolina’s lead to 2-0 at the 4:43 mark of the first period.

Things then went south for the Hurricanes in dramatic fashion.

During a 4-on-4 sequence, Travis Konecny found Claude Giroux with a gorgeous drop pass from behind the Carolina goal to cut the lead in half at 6:31 of the period.

At the 12:19 mark, Joel Edmundson got the gate for slashing and an additional 10-minute misconduct penalty for jawing at the official. During the ensuing power play, the Flyers scored again to tie the game. Ivan Provorov released a slap shot from the point, and Petr Mrazek couldn’t do much with it thanks to the net-front screen from James van Riemsdyk.

The Hurricanes went into survival mode through the rest of the first period, and they eventually got to the room with a 2-2 score in tact. It was a disappointing majority of the period, especially after how promisingly it started.

The early stages of the second period didn’t offer much in the way of positive development for the Canes, either. After going on the power play, the Hurricanes committed the cardinal sin of icing the puck while on the man advantage.

On the resulting face off, Claude Giroux got the puck right to rookie Morgan Frost, who one-timed it right through the legs of Mrazek to give the Flyers three unanswered goals and a 3-2 lead.

From there, Carolina actually took control of the play through the middle portion of the middle frame. They generated opportunities and had a couple of close calls as Elliott struggled to handle his rebounds.

The fourth line, in particular, came through with consistent long shifts in the Flyers zone and nearly found twine. But Elliott and the Philadelphia defense ultimately clamped down when they needed to, though, and through 40 minutes, the Hurricanes trailed 3-2.

Carolina killed a penalty at the outset of the third period and then grabbed control of the game again. The fourth line that played so well in the second period continued to push in the third, and their efforts were rewarded with 16:36 to go in the third period.

A breakout attempt from the Flyers was thwarted by Edmundson, who held the zone and got the puck down low to Brock McGinn. McGinn then sent a behind-the-pack pass across the crease to Lucas Wallmark, who beat a left-out-to-dry Elliott and tied the game at three.

After a fairly strong continued push from Carolina, an unfortunate series of events rendered a painful goal against.

As Teravainen and Edmundson collided behind the Hurricanes’ net, Frost worked the puck in front of the Canes net and sauced a pass through the crease to an unmarked Giroux to give the Flyers another lead, this time by a score of 4-3.

Carolina tried to put together a late push, but after a series of failed rushes with the empty net, Kevin Hayes flung a puck from his own zone into the Canes’ goal with 10 seconds to go. That, effectively, put the game to rest.

The Flyers went into Raleigh and beat the Hurricanes by a final score of 5-3, ending Carolina’s four-game winning streak and worsening their concerning record against Metropolitan Division foes in the process.

With the loss, the Hurricanes fall to 13-8-1 on the season. Their win streak is over, and they’ll look to rebound when they take on the surging Florida Panthers at PNC Arena on Saturday.