The Carolina Hurricanes are sliding at the wrong time of the year. With a 6-1 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins in a game where the team had a chance to move into the final wild card spot in the Eastern Conference Friday night, the Canes have now lost four in a row.
Forward Teuvo Teravainen scored the Canes’ (27-24-10) lone goal. Goalie Cam Ward was beaten six times on 39 Penguins (36-22-4) shots, but was hung out to dry on numerous occasions as Carolina was simply outclassed by Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh outshot Carolina 39-28, and Ward showed the most fight of any Hurricane on the night by smashing his stick over the goal post in disgust after the Pens’ sixth goal.
“I thought they capitalized on our mistakes,” head coach Bill Peters said. “We made enough mistakes that they make you pay. When you make mistakes against this team here, it ends up in the net, and I think that’s what they did.”
The Penguins struck first with 6:24 to play in the first; Canes forward Victor Rask turned it over to Penguins forward Phil Kessel in the defensive zone, and Kessel circled the net and found forward Jake Guentzel wide open on the back door for a tap in to make it 1-0.
Pittsburgh doubled its lead less than a minute into the second, as defenseman Olli Maatta beat Ward through traffic right off a faceoff.
“I think the biggest problem we had was our execution with the puck,” Peters said. “I thought in the neutral zone we turned it over a few times. We turned it over on one of their goals in transitions and I thought we had some poor recognition of when the D was trying to get off and we’ve got to get it in behind them to allow the D to change and we didn’t do that. I think we wore some guys out today.”
The Canes cut the lead in half just over a minute later. Forward Sebastian Aho came up with a steal in the corner and fed it to forward Elias Lindholm in the high slot, who put a shot on Murray that the Pens goaltender kicked out, but Teravainen snapped home the rebound to make it 2-1.
“That was a tough game for us,” Teravainen said. “They scored a lot of goals and they got the momentum. We never really came back and didn’t fight enough. It can’t happen.”
The Canes answered that goal with a wave of chances, but could not find the equalizer. The momentum was short lived, as Kessel made it 3-1 off a cross-ice feed from Guentzel.
Ward made several excellent stops off an odd-man rushes for the Penguins, but Pittsburgh took a 4-1 lead on an unfortunate sequence for Carolina. A slash in front of the Penguins net went uncalled, leading to another rush that Kessel finished off for his second of the game.
“The storyline and they showed us they wanted it more tonight,” Canes forward Justin Williams said. “That’s frustrating because we’ve got to be better, and certainly I’m at the top of that list.”
Pens forward Carl Hagelin appeared to add an early third-period insurance marker, but a video review ruled he kicked the puck in. Forward Sidney Crosby did make it 5-1 Pittsburgh on a power play about nine minutes into the period, and forward Evgeni Malkin chipped in the Pens’ sixth tally.
After Pittsburgh’s sixth goal, Ward smashed his stick against the goal post in disgust and was given a 10-minute misconduct penalty.
“We left him out to dry tonight for sure,” defenseman Brett Pesce said. “I don’t blame him. Hopefully whenever he plays next we can do a better job in front of him.”
Carolina will hit the road to face the Detroit Red Wings Saturday night in the team’s final contest ahead of Monday’s NHL trade deadline, and remains one point behind both the New York Islanders and Columbus Blue Jackets for that coveted wild card position.
“We had a really good chance to take over, win some games,” Teravainen said. “And now we just can’t do it. We have to regroup and think about ourselves and get our confidence back. I mean, we’re right there. We just have to compete and get our confidence.”
Canes forward Jordan Staal missed the game against Pittsburgh due to a personal matter.
