Canes have NHL’s best penalty kill, but Brind’Amour says power play disparity ‘frustrating’

Having been fined by the NHL for postgame comments critical of the officiating, Carolina Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour now tends to choose his words carefully.

It would have been easy to go off a little Monday after a 4-3 overtime loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Leafs had four power plays and five minutes of power-play time, getting a goal from Auston Matthews. The Canes: one power play for 16 seconds.

Both teams played hard in their first game after the NHL All-Star break. There were a lot of intense battles, along the boards and in front of the net at Scotiabank Arena. There was one fight, the Canes’ Brendan Smith and the Leafs’ Wayne Simmonds dropping the gloves to go at it.

But other than the fighting majors to Smith and Simmonds, the Canes were called for four penalties and the Leafs for one — a holding call on defenseman Morgan Rielly that negated nearly all of a Leafs power play in the third period.

“It’s always frustrating,” Brind’Amour said after the game. “I don’t know that ... I don’t know what to say about it. It does get frustrating but we kind of talk about it every night.

“For whatever reason, it always works out that way. It always seems like we’re always getting less power plays every night. You would think it would even out a little more.”

The Canes are a quick playmaking team not lacking for skill players. They stay in motion, attacking and pressuring, forcing opponents to react. Their defensemen are aggressive.

In their 43 games, the Canes have forced 143 penalties, 27th in the NHL. They been called for 170, 13th in the league.

Only the Arizona Coyotes, the league’s worst team, has a worse penalty differential — minus-38 to the Canes’ minus-27. In contrast, the Colorado Avalanche are plus-30.

While ranking 10th in power-play percentage (24.8), the Canes are 21st in power-play opportunities with 125, with more power plays than their opponents in 12 of their 43 games. They’ve had one power play in six games, and did not have a power play Dec. 4 against Buffalo, albeit in a 6-2 win

Matthews and Mitch Marner both had two goals Monday and Marner’s second won it at 2:51 of overtime. Matthews’ second goal, with 23 seconds left in the second period, gave the Leafs a 2-1 lead and Marner tied it 3-3 in the third.

Nino Niederreiter scored his 13th of the season in the first for the Canes, who had won four straight before the break. Tony DeAngelo’s goal eight seconds into the third tied the score 2-2, and Derek Stepan gave the Canes a lead midway through the third.

All that came at even strength. Matthews’ power-play goal in the second period gave Toronto the special-teams edge for the game as the Leafs took a sixth straight victory.

“We didn’t get any tonight. It might be different tomorrow (at Ottawa) but they got a power-play goal that we needed to kill,” Brind’Amour said. “I guess in the end that was the difference in the game. Tough loss that way but it was a good game. These guys played hard.”

Both goalies played well, and each had 28 saves in the first confrontation between the Canes’ Frederik Andersen and the Leafs’ Petr Mrazek, who traded positions after last season — Andersen leaving Toronto to sign as a free agent with Carolina and Mrazek leaving the Canes and signing with the Leafs.

Attendance at Scotiabank Arena was limited to 500 because of pandemic restrictions, but Andersen’s contributions to the Leafs — five seasons, 149 wins — were recognized during the game in the mostly empty building.

“It was nice for them to kind of say thanks for the time here,” Andersen said. “That was a little bit weird but eventually the game has to come first.”

Carolina Hurricanes at Ottawa Senators

When: Tuesday, 7 p.m.

Where: Canadian Tire Centre, Ottawa.

TV/RADIO: Bally Sports South, WCMC-99.9 FM.

This story was originally published February 8, 2022 at 6:30 AM.

Chip Alexander

The News & Observer

919-829-8945

In more than 40 years at The N&O, Chip Alexander has covered the N.C. State, UNC, Duke and East Carolina beats, and now is in his 15th season on the Carolina Hurricanes beat. Alexander, who has won numerous writing awards at the state and national level, covered the Hurricanes’ move to North Carolina in 1997 and was a part of The N&O’s coverage of the Canes’ 2006 Stanley Cup run.