Kochetkov blanks Red Wings to wrap up exceptional road trip

Led by a second straight shutout from Pyotr Kochetkov, the Carolina Hurricanes wrapped up their six-game road trip with a 1-0 win over the Detroit Red Wings Tuesday night.

For the Canes, the season-long road trip went about as well as it could have gone. Carolina went 5-0-1 on the trip, starting two weeks ago in Pittsburgh and ending Tuesday with the second shutout win in a row.

Kochetkov was excellent for the visitors, stopping all 27 shots faced while controlling the game from start to finish. To his credit, Ville Husso was awesome on the other end of the ice, too, stopping 26 of 27 faced with the only exception a great Tic-Tac-Toe effort from the Canes on the power play that ended in a goal from Brady Skjei.

Carolina’s special teams also played a big role in the win, as the Canes were a perfect 3 for 3 on the penalty kill and 1 for 2 on the man advantage, thanks to the Skjei goal set up by a wonderful pass from Seth Jarvis.

The Canes had three golden chances to open the scoring in the first 10 minutes of the game, but Husso and his framework were not to be beat.

The first came from Andrei Svechnikov, as he perfectly tipped a shot low that Husso somehow got his pad out to and held firm to keep it out. A few minutes later Martin Necas rang the post, and shortly after that Svechnikov got in alone and worked a nice move across the crease that Husso calmly followed to deny the Russian winger for a second time.

Carolina went to the power play late in the first period as Adam Erne sat for slashing, and the Canes took full advantage of the extra skater. The Hurricanes unleashed a wonderful set play, as Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Jarvis and Skjei went Tic-Tac-Toe for the goal, with Jarvis delivering an unbelievable backhanded spin pass to Skjei to set up the goal.

The second period featured no goals and no great chances, though Carolina’s penalty kill stepped up in a big way. The Canes easily killed off back-to-back Brent Burns penalties midway through the period, and later killed off the first bit of a Jordan Staal penalty before Detroit committed one to make it a 4-on-4.

The third period was a lot of the same, as both goalies showed up in a big way to keep the score 1-0. Kochetkov had a handful of exceptional saves down the stretch to preserve the shutout, while Husso also kept Detroit in it with some nice stops of his own.

The Canes will finally return home Thursday night for a meeting with the Kraken, Carolina’s first game in PNC Arena since Nov. 26.