Hurricanes Stay Unbeaten with 5-1 Win Over Kraken

Game two of the Carolina Hurricanes’ five-game trek through the Pacific Division was a rousing success on Monday night as they handed the Seattle Kraken a 5-1 loss at Climate Pledge Arena.

After the offensive struggle that their win in San Jose was, the Hurricanes got a much-needed early goal in game two of the trip.

Brady Skjei directed a puck toward the net, Sebastian Aho tried to slam it in from the left post, and then Seth Jarvis swooped in to finally push the puck over the goal line just 3:35 into the first period.

Despite a Dylan Coughlan interference penalty shortly after the opening tally, the Hurricanes continued to smother the Kraken as Aho contributed to multiple scoring chances, including a 2-on-1 chance with Teuvo Teravainen on the penalty kill.

Carolina’s momentum got briefly halted by a Martin Necas slashing penalty at 9:42, but another strong kill kept the game at 1-0.

The Canes failed to convert on a power play of their own later in the period, and a couple of very close calls for Yanni Gourde (one on Carolina’s net and another on his own net) nearly changed the score, but he couldn’t cash in on either of his opportunities and Carolina took a 1-0 lead into the first intermission.

It was a far less rambunctious start to the middle frame for the Hurricanes, as the Kraken started to put up a fight in the neutral zone and made the road team grind for their opportunities.

A tremendous read and pass interception from Martin Necas in his own zone eight minutes into period two very nearly led to an Andrei Svechnikov goal, but Philipp Grubauer made a big save on a delayed penalty sequence.

The Carolina power play that followed was fairly dreadful, as was their first chance in the first period, but they almost immediately got yet another chance that rendered infinitely better results in the form of a goal to make it 2-0.

After finally getting set up in the offensive zone, the top power-play unit moved the puck with pace and confidence, and the final pass from Svechnikov saw Aho on the receiving end wire a snapshot over the shoulder of Grubauer.

Jordan Martinook tripped Andrei Burakovsky in the shift following the goal, but the young Kraken forward wasn’t trippin’ for long.

He tapped in a backdoor chance off of a set play to put his club on the board and cut the lead in half for about 18 seconds before the Hurricanes got another power play and made it 3-1.

A gorgeous goalline pass from Aho found Svechnikov in front for his second goal of the year. He didn’t stay at two for long, though, because he got to number three just over a minute later.

Necas fired a shot on net from the high slot, and Svechnikov crept in front of the net to redirect the puck by Grubauer to make it 4-1.

Then, Necas got whistled for a holding penalty, which the Hurricanes killed off with relative ease. Then, Justin Schultz tripped Svechnikov with 1:19 to go in the second period.

At the end of all the chaos and the unending barrage of penalties, the horn did eventually go off to mark the end of period two. The middle frame had it all - penalties, goals... and that’s pretty much it. The two teams combined for six minor penalties and four goals in the period.

The early stages of the third period were sloppy for both clubs as the Hurricanes searched for the dagger and the Kraken searched for a spark of hope, which opened up some space on the ice and led to back-and-forth chances that neither team was able to capitalize on before Carolina put the clamps on in the final ten minutes.

Jordan Martinook went to the front of the net and swiped a loose puck into the net with 5:19 left in the game to put the Kraken away for good.

With the win, the Hurricanes improved to 3-0-0 on the young season and a perfect two-for-two on their five-game Pacific Division road trip. Aho and Svechnikov led the way offensively, racking up three points each in front of another steady performance from Frederik Andersen, who stopped 21 of the 22 shots he faced.

The Hurricanes will continue their road trip on Thursday when they visit Connor McDavid’s Oilers up in Edmonton.