Hurricanes storm past Winnipeg in Third, win 5-1

On the back of an explosive third period that saw Seth Jarvis score his second career hat trick and Brandon Bussi make twelve confident saves, the Carolina Hurricanes got back to their winning ways by defeating the Winnipeg Jets 5-1. The win ruined the NHL debut for Winnipeg goalie Thomas Milic, who was solid but couldn’t overcome the multiple waves the Canes put up in the third.

It’s Carolina’s first win since defeating these Jets last Friday up in Winnipeg, and it’s the Jets’ fourth straight loss, all since it was announced Vezina winner Connor Hellebuyck will miss 4-6 weeks with a surgery. For the Canes it was their first win since Jordan Staal went down with an illness, as Stall missed his third straight game.

The first period started similar to Wednesday night, with up and down action, but before too long the Canes tilted the ice in their favor, testing the rookie Thomas Milic. He was up to the task early, as the Canes put up several good shots that Milic was able to see, and his defenders in front of him helped support to make the chances a little easier to see. That support helped keep the action in the Canes’ end, and resulted in two Power Plays for the Canes—both of which were empty. Both units though had chances, a significant improvement over Wednesday Night.

It was actually after Winnipeg’s first sustained offensive push of the night that Carolina was able to score. The Jets hemmed in the Canes’ third line for an extended period, getting a few shot attempts on starter Brandon Bussi, but the defense held strong. Once the Canes were finally able to push the puck out of the zone, the Aho line jumped on the ice and quickly pushed back, leading to to a behind the goal pass from Shayne Gostisbehere to Seth Jarvis at the left faceoff dot, who was able to get it past Milic for the first goal of the game.

View Link

The Canes had a 10-5 shot advantage after one, and generally dominated play. It’s a credit to Milic that the score wasn’t worse for the Jets.

The Jets found their game in the second, dominating play and getting a power play when Andrei Svechnikov was called for an interference that really looked like a typical hip check. The kill succeeded, but the Jets kept the pressure on. Eventually, the Canes were able to get set up in the offensive zone but a bad pass by Svechnikov was intercepted by Gabriel Vilardi. Gostisbehere was the target of the pass—presumably—and dove to try and stop the exit, and was unsuccessful. The puck ended up on the stick of a rushing Mark Scheifele, who pushed it past Bussi at 10:41.

The rest of the period was back and forth as the teams traded unsuccessful Power Plays, and the period ended in a weird sequence that somehow saw two players for each side assessed matching roughing minors despite some clear instigation from Winnipeg. The Canes held the shot advantage that period 11-5 and 21-10 overall, but the action was a lot more even.

The floodgates eventually opened in the third. After the game multiple players and coach Rod Brind’Amour stated they needed to get back to their style in that period, and the ice tilted back towards the Winnipeg end. Bussi was called on to make a few saves—which he did confidently leading to the crowd chanting his name. Finally at 11:52 of the third Jordan Martinook broke the tie by shooting the puck instead of passing, which seemed to have infected the team for the first part of the period. The open shot from the faceoff dot blew past Milic and the Canes grabbed the lead for good at 2-1.

View Link

Just forty seconds later, the Aho line stepped up for the bump up shift and went to work. They got back into the Winnipeg zone, and a good keep in by Svechnikov started a series that saw the puck on the stick of K’Andre Miller, who fed a perfect pass to an open Jarvis. Jarvis shot from near about the same place as Martinook, got it past Milic, and the Canes were up 3-1.

View Link

Carolina would do an outstanding job for the rest of the period keeping the pressure on Winnipeg, forcing them to hold Milic in his net until just over two minutes remaining in the second. Sure enough, Svechnikov was able to make up for his earlier mistake by intercepting a pass himself, and rather than skate down the ice threw it off the board in front of the penalty box where a streaking Seth Jarvis gathered it and put it in the net for the hats to rain down on the ice.

View Link

It was the second hat trick of Jarvis’ carrer, his 15th of the season in only 24 games, and as Ryan Henkel notes it took him 46 to get to that mark last season. For someone who wants to make a case to be on Team Canada, he’s doing it at the right time.

The Canes weren’t quite done, as Alexander Nikishin decided to showcase his boom by blasting a shot at the blue line with under a minute to go. The feed came off a great pass by Justin Robidas, and the shot went by Milic to get the game to the 5-1 final score.

View Link

The Canes now will take the good vibes into the weekend as they host another Western Candian team on Sunday, this time the Calgary Flames. Face off for that will be at 5 PM, and the Canes are expected to practice at noon in Lenovo Saturday.