Teravainen sets it up, Aho knocks it down for Hurricanes in 6-2 win over Wild
For all the times fans have screamed at Teuvo Teravainen to shoot on an odd-man rush instead of trying to thread an impossible pass, the Carolina Hurricanes winger made his best possible case for the pass, always the pass, Saturday night.
In the second period, Teravainen had the puck cruising down the right wing on a two-on-one with Sebastian Aho, the defenseman in decent but not ideal position, all of his options about the same. Teravainen passed on the pass to Aho and took a high-and-wide shot that nipped the goalie’s arm and bounced off the end boards. The Minnesota Wild went the other way and scored.
“I’ll never shoot it again,” Teravainen joked. “So, last time I shoot.”
“That means I get more shots,” Aho said, “so I ‘m probably not going to complain.”
On a night when Teravainen had three terrific assists to set up Aho’s third career hat trick and first five-point game, the pass he didn’t make only highlighted how good the other ones were in the 6-2 win over the Wild. Teravainen set up Aho twice Finn-to-Finn and was the fulcrum of a pair of power-play goals to put a decisive end to a five-game stretch without a point and run the Hurricanes’ record against the Western Conference to 7-3-0 as they head out west for a five-game road trip.
Teravainen’s return to productivity was as impressive as it was timely, in front of the Hurricanes’ third sellout of the season.
“Sometimes the pucks find a way to go in,” Teravainen said. “Sometimes not.”
He set up Andrei Svechnikov for a tap-in on a five-on-three power play in the first period with a diagonal pass to the far post, played a give-and-go with Aho early in the second and, after his decision to shoot turned into a Wild odd-man rush and goal, found Aho in front on the power play with a pinpoint pass out of the corner for a deflection.
“Elite players pass it where it’s a layup,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “That’s basically what happened there.”
It was a prototypical playmaking winger performance, and while Teravainen can certainly score, he’s at his best setting up others like this. That this wizardry to tie a career-high came at the end of a rare slump made it all the more impressive.
Last season, Teravainen recorded his 22nd assist in his 39th game. This year, it only took him 30.
“Really, really, really nice passes,” Aho said. “It’s who he is. A really smart players. Sees the ice, sees the players. My two, and Svech’s one goal, basically a tap-in. I called for both of them, but still, you need the pass to get the goal. Great passes.”
After giving up an early goal to Ryan Donato less than three minutes in, the Hurricanes picked up the pressure and evened the score when Ryan Dzingel fed Lucas Wallmark cutting across the slot ahead of Victor Rask. Wallmark made no mistake on the finish.
Then came one of those early pivotal moments that can set the entire tone for a game: Joel Eriksson Ek pulled Aho down and Jordan Greenway knocked him back down when Aho got up. Both went to the box and the Hurricanes had a full two minutes of two-man advantage.
Fail to score there and the rest of the game feels like an uphill battle. The Hurricanes needed less than half of that time to convert, Teravainen teeing up Svechnikov’s 13th of the season.
Teravainen then set up the two Aho goals on either side of the Mats Zuccarello goal — his 30th point in 34 games against the Hurricanes — before Aho’s faceoff win led to a Joel Edmundson goal from the point for a 5-2 advantage. That made it a four-point night for Aho before he cashed the empty-netter for the hat trick, the 99th goal of his NHL career.
“Maybe I haven’t gotten those bounces this year that much, but tonight I got all of them, I guess,” Aho said. “That’s how it goes. Sometimes, that’s hockey. You can play really, really well and you don’t get the bounces and no points. Today, it felt like every time I touched the puck I got a point. One of those nights. ”
There was no help from Teravainen on the last one as Aho claimed the glory that would have gone otherwise to his fellow Finn, who might even have had a better game than the hat trick hero.
This story was originally published December 7, 2019 at 9:36 PM.
