Power play excellence, Burns highlight domination of Coyotes

Fresh off a brutal 3-2 loss in Vegas, pretty much everything went right for the Carolina Hurricanes Friday night in Arizona.

The Canes beat the Coyotes 6-1, and there was a plethora of great things that happened for the visitors. The power play, partly reinvigorated by newcomer Shayne Gostisbehere but also good otherwise, went 3 for 4 and looked as good as it has all season. Antti Raanta wasn’t tested much, but he was great when he was. Sebastian Aho scored two goals, and Brent Burns had four primary assists, making him the first player in Canes history (since relocation) to achieve that feat.

Along with Aho and Gostisbehere, Jaccob Slavin, Martin Necas and Paul Stastny found the back of the net, with Aho, Gostisbehere and Necas all tallying on the power play. Raanta stopped 17 of 18 shots faced, while Karel Vejmelka stopped 36 of 42 in the other net.

Things couldn’t have started much better for the Canes, as a phenomenal pass from Brent Burns set up the game-opening goal in the first few minutes of the contest. Burns did a great job to control a puck on the boards and smoothly zip the puck to a wide-open Stastny on the far side, as the veteran forward had all the time in the world to settle the puck and pick his spot to make it 1-0.

Shortly after a prime scoring chance from Brady Skjei was somehow turned away by Vejmelka, Aho made it 2-0 on a big effort play. Aho worked hard to win the puck in a crowd of Coyotes in the neutral zone, and he kept with a rolling puck to beat the Arizona netminder and double the lead in the first period.

Slavin opened up the second-period scoring with a laser beam of a shot, sniping the corner from Burns’ second primary feed of the night. The Coyotes got one back in the seconds after a power play ended a few minutes later, but from there on it was all Carolina.

The newcomer Gostisbehere made his power play impact felt immediately, as Carolina’s first man advantage of the night ended in a Gostisbehere goal against his former team.

On the Hurricanes’ next man advantage, it was Aho who scored and Burns who had the primary feed, again.

The Hurricanes opened up the third period with a third power play goal, as this time Necas was the man who put the puck in the net. And no surprise on the night, it was Burns who had the feed. Also worth noting, Stefan Noesen provided some net-front presence on all three power play goals for the Canes.

The win was a comprehensive, much-needed win for the Canes. After Thursday’s disappointment and a quite trade deadline day Friday, Carolina came out and proved that it’s a team that can win the cup, regardless of who the opponent was.