Amid college basketball hoopla, Hurricanes outplayed one of the NHL’s best goalies
It didn’t have the glitz of Mike Krzyzewski starting his last coaching ride at Duke, with New York’s Madison Square Garden the backdrop.
It didn’t draw the attention of Hubert Davis beginning his first season as head coach at North Carolina or have a national ESPN presence such as N.C. State’s women’s team hosting No. 1 South Carolina in its opener.
But while college basketball was cranking up Tuesday, the Carolina Hurricanes, the state’s best major-league team, was winning a pretty big hockey game.
The Tampa Bay Lightning has been the NHL standard the past two seasons, which each ended with Tampa Bay the Stanley Cup champion. The Hurricanes went into Amalie Arena in Tampa, Florida, skated with the champs, rallied in the third period and eventually won in overtime, 2-1.
“It’s nice to get that one,” Canes coach Rod Brind’Amour said after the game. “I thought the guys just kept playing hard all night. It was a great goaltending performance for both teams. It was a pretty exciting game for a relatively low-scoring game.”
Tampa Bay goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy was at his best much of the night. So was the Frederik Andersen, who now has started 10 of Carolina’s 11 games as the Canes have built a 10-1-0 record and hold the lead in the Metropolitan Division.
It was the first overtime game of the season for the Hurricanes and they scored twice in the extra period. The first goal, by defenseman Brady Skjei, didn’t count when a review determined there was offsides on the play. The second, by Martin Necas, did count.
That the Canes were able to hold their composure after the Skjei goal was disallowed, that they found a way to again beat Vasilevskiy and win the game, was Brind’Amour’s top takeaway from the game.
“To fight back and tie it and feel like you win it and then get ‘Nope, you didn’t, you’ll have to do it again,’ I feel like says a lot about the group,” Brind’Amour said. “They literally just shook it off, better than I did. They were just like, ‘OK, let’s play a little bit more.’ It was a real positive game for us.”
The Canes trailed 1-0 in the third period but pulled even on a neatly executed power play, as Teuvo Teravainen smoked a shot past Vasilevskiy off a Vincent Trocheck setup pass. It was the only power-play score of the game as Tampa Bay went 0-4 and was held to one power-play shot.
In a 5-2 loss Saturday against the Florida Panthers, the Canes were burned for three power-play scores -- in the first period. Their penalty killing was on point Tuesday.
“We learned,” Skjei said. “Last game, we gave up a few too many seam passes and that was kind of a big emphasis for us (Tuesday). and we did a great job. We were really aggressive, which is our strength for sure. We got in shot-blocking lanes. It was really good outing by our penalty kill.”
The Canes botched a lengthy 5-on-3 power play in the second, failing to score even after Vasilevskiy lost a skate blade.
“Usually that’s the kiss of death when you don’t score on a 5-on-3,” Tampa Bay captain Steven Stamkos said to the media. “We definitely built some momentum off that. That was a pretty inspiring shift for the guys who were out there.”
But the Canes converted in the third after a goaltender interference call against Stamkos that left the Lightning salty. Stamkos believed he was pushed into Andersen but the end result was a 1-1 tie with 10 minutes left in regulation.
In the overtime, Necas got off a shot from the left circle that Victor Hedman could not block and Vasilevskiy could not stop. Necas had an overtime winner against Tampa last season. He did it again Tuesday, and against arguably the best defenseman and goalie in the world.
“After the second period, Roddy came in the locker room and just said, ‘Play our game, battle for every puck and it doesn’t have to happen in the first shift, it can happen on the last one,’ ” Necas said. “We did get it in overtime. Great team performance and a good one for us.”
This story was originally published November 10, 2021 at 12:53 PM.
