Islanders hold on for 5-4 victory over Carolina Hurricanes
Carolina Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour says his team hasn’t been able to build a lot of “traction” this season.
The Canes’ 5-4 loss Saturday to the New York Islanders was another example.
The Canes, looking for a strong start in the home game, soon had a penalty to kill. Then Andrei Svechnikov was tripped as the power forward was driving hard to the net — but no whistle, no call.
With Canes fans at PNC Arena on their feet and booing, the Islanders went the other way and New York defenseman Sebastian Aho scored.
The Canes responded by tying it up, Teuvo Teravainen knocking one in close for his 13th of the season. That finally turned all those boos — 18,000 loudly booing at the refs, especially when a replay was shown on the big board — to cheers.
But it would be one step forward, two back. Brock Nelson scored for the Isles on a faceoff play. Then Bo Horvat took a Mathew Barzal pass and scored — 3-1 Isles after the first period.
Absorbing all that was Canes goalie Pyotr Kochetkov, who had Horvat’s shot get past him for a soft goal.
The Hurricanes’ Sebastian Aho scored on a power-play blast from the left circle early in the second.
Svechnikov came an inch from tying it in the second, his shot from the left wing off the rush ringing the post so hard the ping could be heard all over the building.
Svechnikov’s near miss was another example of how the season has gone — close to being something good but not quite there.
When Isles defenseman Mike Reilly put an end-over-end shot past Kochetkov — another bad goal — it was 4-2.
The Canes (17-13-4) pulled within a goal early in the third when Jaccob Slavin took a pass from Martin Necas and beat Isles goalie Ilya Sorokin. But New York’s Anders Lee soon made it 5-3.
A power-play goal by Stefan Noesen pulled Carolina within 5-4, but the Canes could not tie it up in after pulling Kochetkov for a sixth attacker.
“We needed this win obviously but it is what it is,” the Canes’ Aho said. “I don’t think we played nearly as well as we could. This one hurts.”
All in all, it made for a pretty miserable night for Kochetkov, who allowed at least three goals that could be considered soft.
“He’s been working so hard. Tonight’s not on him at all,” Slavin said. “As a team we have to be better defensively. That’s been our lapses this year. When we aren’t playing well, we’re giving up too many chances against. So we have to be better for him.”
It was Kochetkov’s fourth straight start and his sixth in the past seven games as the wait continues for goalies Frederik Andersen and Antti Raanta.
“We’re probably riding him a little too much,” Brind’Amour said. “You could tell he wasn’t as good as he has been and that’s probably the difference, right?”
Andersen, dealing with blood-clotting issues, is working out again while Raanta works on his shaken confidence with Chicago in the AHL. The return of either or both remains indefinite.
The Canes have gone through a stretch where they have played reasonably well but not well enough, going 3-1-3 in the last seven games before the Christmas break.
“I think we’ve played better than our record,” Brind’Amour said. “We probably deserve more points out of this stuff. We haven’t done it, so we’re in a tough spot.”
Against the Stanley Cup champion Vegas Golden Knights, the Canes appeared to make a statement with a 6-3 victory. They showed how good they can be.
But that was sandwiched between shootout losses to the Washington Capitals and Pittsburgh Penguins when the Canes could score just one goal in each and not win the shootout — or “skills competition,” as Brind’Amour calls it in deriding fashion.
The Canes went into Saturday’s game in a wild-card playoff position in the Eastern Conference. That’s where things stand at Christmastime.
“Right now it’s a little disappointing but maybe Santa will be good to everybody and everybody come back with a good frame of mind,” Brind’Amour said.
This story was originally published December 23, 2023 at 10:46 PM.
