Carolina Hurricanes left feeling sour after team’s first overtime loss in almost a year
The Carolina Hurricanes played one of those games Wednesday that left everyone in the locker room grumpy.
Not the Florida Panthers’ locker room. Those guys had to be whooping it up. They came from behind to win 4-3 in overtime at PNC Arena, taking over first place in the NHL’s Central Division with a 10-2-2 record and 22 points.
Jonathan Huberdeau capped a near-flawless game with the overtime winner, beating goalie Alex Nedeljkovic with a crafty forehand at 2:29 of the OT. That came after he contributed a power-play goal in the second period with a blistering top-shelf shot and set up Alex Wennberg for a goal early in the third with a spinning pass off the wall.
The Canes (10-3-1) were left feeling sour. They were sharp enough in the first period, taking a 2-0 lead late in the period on rapid-fire goals from Jordan Staal and Sebastian Aho that were 22 seconds apart.
Staal extended his goal streak to four straight games, Aho redirected a Brett Pesce shot and the Canes had the Panthers on their heels.
“We played our game, got the pucks deep, went to forecheck and got a lot of pucks back,” Aho said.
But Huberdeau’s power-play goal was the game’s turning point, Canes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. The Panthers kept coming, tying the score on the Wennberg goal off the rush and then moving ahead 3-2 on Juho Lammikko’s first NHL goal, at 12:06 of the third.
“Halfway through the game we were pretty good but then we took that penalty and they scored and I thought everything changed after that,” Brind’Amour said. “We were on our heels the whole rest of the way. We probably got fortunate to even get a point out of it.”
‘It’s not on the goalie’
Vincent Trocheck, playing for the first time against the team that traded him to Carolina last season, tied it for the Canes with a brilliant redirect -- a power-play goal that eventually got the Canes a point. Leaving his stick on the ice, Trocheck popped the puck up and past goalie Chris Driedger on a pass from Andrei Svechnikov.
Nedeljkovic, in his second start of the season, was cleanly beaten twice by Huberdeau. But the goal by Lammikko was too soft, the backhand shot beating him at the shortside post, the puck trickling over the goal line.
Brind’Amour didn’t want to point a finger at Nedeljkovic, who has gotten a chance to play while Petr Mrazek recovers from thumb surgery.
“We just didn’t get to work and let the other team back in and they’ve got too much talent to do that,” Brind’Amour said. “It’s the NHL. You’re going to get what we got when you’re not ready to play every shift. It’s 60 minutes. There’s no way around it. It’s not on the goalie.”
Canes sloppy in overtime
The Canes had not lost a game in overtime or a shootout since Feb. 29, 2020 when they were beaten in overtime in Montreal. But they were sloppy in the OT as Jake Gardiner had a cross-ice pass to Trocheck picked off by Aleksander Barkov, who quickly pushed the puck up ice to Huberdeau.
According to Natural Stat Trick, a hockey analytics website, the Canes had a big edge five on five Wednesday -- 28-18 in scoring chances (16-5 in the first period) and 13-3 in high-danger scoring chances. But those are the numbers. On the ice, the Panthers were the better team as Staal said the Canes got “too cute” with their play.
Driedger, 5-1-1 in seven games this season with Florida, stopped 32 shots and had an assist on the Wennberg goal.
“The last two periods we were missing details, we were maybe a little sloppy with the puck at the blue lines,” Aho said. “That’s a great team. We’ll just have to play better.”
They’ll get seven more cracks at it.
COVID report
The NHL puts out a daily COVID-19 protocol list of the players who are not available for COVID reasons. But what about coaches and staff?
Brind’Amour said Wednesday that none of the Canes coaches or staff members had been directly affected by COVID during the pandemic.
“No, other than what everybody else has to deal with, which is lifestyle changes and all that,” he said. “But, no, we’ve been pretty good, pretty lucky I guess.”
This story was originally published February 17, 2021 at 4:44 PM.
