Recap: Niederreiter winner lifts Canes past Stars

For the third time already this season the Carolina Hurricanes beat the Dallas Stars Thursday night on the road, winning 5-3 thanks to a phenomenal game-winning goal from Nino Niederreiter early in the third period.

Carolina and Dallas traded the lead back and forth through the first two periods, but things settled down in the third as Niederreiter’s undressing of Anton Khudobin proved to be the difference maker.

Along with Niederreiter’s goal, Carolina got goals from Sebastian Aho, Jordan Staal and Brock McGinn, who extended his goal streak to four games. Warren Foegele added an empty netter. On the other end, Joe Pavelski, Roope Hintz and Mark Pysyk found the net for the Stars.

James Reimer was the winning goalie for the Canes, stopping 34 of 37 shots faced. For the Stars, Khudobin turned away 27 of 31 shots against.

After getting a fortunate ding off the post early in the period and killing off a couple Dallas power plays, the Canes opened the scoring late in the opening frame on a beauty of a connection between Staal and Aho on the power play.

Staal, who has been as hot as anyone on the Canes of late, dropped off a perfect no-look pass to Aho streaking towards the net, and the Finnish forward slotted it home with authority past Khudobin. Vincent Trocheck, in his return to the ice after missing a game due to injury, got the secondary assist after winning the puck and feeding Staal between the circles.

The second period wasn’t the prettiest for the Hurricanes, but the end result wasn’t the worst as the teams entered the second intermission tied at 3-3.

After the Canes killed off an Andrei Svechnikov penalty to start the second, Dallas tied things at 1-1 on a great individual effort by Pysyk. Psysyk skated it in himself, fired a shot off Reimer’s pads and slotted home the rebound.

The tie lasted for just 30 seconds, as Staal got his goal on a diving effort for his third tally of the season. Svechnikov laced a perfect backhanded pass to Staal across the mouth of the net, and Staal extended to fire it past Khudobin.

Rod Brind’Amour successfully challenged a game-tying Hintz goal for offside, but it didn’t matter much as Hintz scored for real just seconds after having his first goal taken off the board. Jason Robertson threaded a breakout pass to Denis Gurianov, who played some give-and-go with Hintz for the goal, which may have been aided by an unfortunate bounce off the stick of Jaccob Slavin.

Penalty issues finally bit the Canes a few minutes later, as Carolina took an interference on Nino Niederreiter and a too many men on the ice, served by Ryan Dzingel, to give Dallas a big chunk of 5-on-3 time. The too many men call was the fifth penalty against the Hurricanes.

It was Pavelski who made the Hurricanes pay, putting in work to keep the puck in the offensive zone before firing a great pass from John Klingberg near post past Reimer to give Dallas a lead.

A few moments after Svechnikov nearly scored on a lacrosse move again, McGinn tallied a goal in his fourth straight game to tie things at 3-3 in the final minute. McGinn netted a heavy rebound off a great point shot from Brett Pesce past Khudobin, continuing a hot streak and knotting things up heading into the second intermission.

Niederreiter made it 4-3 with his beautiful tally a few minutes into the final period, using a great move to beat Khudobin. The play was sparked by a perfect stretch pass from Dougie Hamilton, who picked Niederreiter out from deep in the Canes’ defensive zone.

Foegele sealed the win with an empty net goal, his third tally of the season.

The Canes and Stars will meet again Saturday night.