Carolina Hurricanes hold on for 6-5 win against Columbus in hard-fought game
The Carolina Hurricanes and Columbus Blue Jackets went at it for 60 minutes Sunday in a fast, entertaining game that was decided by one goal.
And one that was a contested, controversial goal.
The Canes won 6-5 at Nationwide Arena and did a lot of good things. Jordan Staal had a power-play goal and two assists. The Canes got their first goals of the season from the back end as defensemen Brett Pesce and Dougie Hamilton scored. Vincent Trocheck, Warren Foegele and Brock McGinn also had goals as the Canes (7-2-0) kept attacking.
With the Canes shorthanded after a penalty and the Blue Jackets with an extra attacker on the ice in the final seconds of regulation, defenseman Jaccob Slavin went down to block a heavy shot by Patrik Laine, who had scored twice in the game and was looking for a third.
“We dug in,” Canes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “At the end I thought we did a nice job of selling out. We did what we had to do to get a win. Your best players, I thought, really stepped up.”
But it was a decision by the NHL during the second intermission that created confusion, controversy. The Canes, the winners, could shrug it off. The Blue Jackets, the losers, could not.
At 18:45 of the second period, Trocheck scored off a rebound of a Pesce shot for a 4-3 lead. Columbus coach John Tortorella challenged the goal, claiming Trocheck had been offside when the center first entered the zone.
After a review, the ruling was a good goal. Losing the challenge, the Blue Jackets were charged with a delay-of-game penalty and the Canes went on the power play.
The Canes didn’t score, carrying 45 seconds of power-play time to the third period. But during the second intermission break, the NHL ruled there had been a “miscommunication” between the Video Replay Booth in Columbus, the linesmen and the NHL Situation Room. Not all of the replays of Trocheck entering the zone had been viewed.
Trocheck had been offside, the NHL ruled. The Canes would not lose the goal, the league ruled, but would lose the final 45 seconds of power-play time. It was a strange turn of events, everyone agreed.
“It’s 2021, anything is possible these days,” Canes forward Ryan Dzingel said on the media call. “We’re not even shocked anymore, to be honest. There’s not much more you can say there. It is what it is. We found a way to win.
“I guess it was offside, they said, whatever. You want to get those things right. It was good for us, but it didn’t look great. Obviously, it was a weird situation. We kind of laughed if off and went and played five on five.”
Tortorella refused to comment after the game on the refereeing and the ruling. Blue Jackets captain Nick Foligno, on the Columbus media call, called it a “bad look for the NHL” and Laine added it was “the biggest joke I’ve ever seen.”
As for the game, it was a shootout. The Blue Jackets (5-5-3) scored first on a Laine power-play goal, led 2-1 after the first period and reclaimed the lead in the second before Pesce unloaded a shot from the point and then Trocheck scored off a Pesce rebound.
Max Domi’s goal early in the third tied it for Columbus, but Staal got a piece of a Hamilton shot on the power play. Hamilton then scored at 10:37 of the third for a 6-4 lead as Columbus defenseman David Savard tried to knock the puck out of the air and instead knocked it over the head of goalie Joonas Korpisalo.
“It was bound to happen,” Pesce said of the Canes’ two goals from the defense. “Now that we’ve got a few maybe we’ll get on a roll and get more from the back end.”
Things were tense in the end. The Blue Jackets pulled Korpisalo and Laine blasted in a shot with 56 seconds left in regulation. Hamilton was then called for slashing and Columbus had a 6-on-4 advantage but Slavin blocked the Laine shot.
Goalie James Reimer, not always at his best Sunday, allowed five goals on 22 shots but picked up his fifth win of the season.
“I liked how we kept coming back,” Brind’Amour said. “I felt like we didn’t stop playing. It was always, ‘Don’t worry about it, get the next one’ mentality. I thought our compete was high.”
And they’ll go at it again Monday, closing out a back-to-back.
Hurricanes at Blue Jackets
When: Monday, 7 p.m.
Where: Nationwide Arena, Columbus.
TV: FSCR
This story was originally published February 7, 2021 at 2:41 PM.
