In Friday night’s 2-0 win over the Vancouver Canucks, the Carolina Hurricanes amassed a season-high 27 blocked shots. In fact, it was their most blocks in a game by eight as the Canes laid it all out on the ice.
“You could see the tank was on E, but I thought we dug in and then a couple plays were the difference in the game,” said head coach Rod Brind’Amour.
Nothing in Raleigh is quite as hot as center Jordan Staal’s stick right now. A night after netting his fourth career hat trick, Staal opened the scoring 14:41 into the first period.
Waiting in the slot, Staal located the puck on a rebound from defenseman Dmitry Orlov’s shot from the point. Staal quickly fired a shot off that slid through the five-hole of Canucks goalie Thatcher Demko’s pads.
In his last four games, Staal has been playing at a two-point-per-game pace, recording five goals and three assists. As his brother Eric Staal’s jersey goes into the rafters of Lenovo Center on Sunday, the captain has reminded everyone that there is still a Staal on the ice playing elite hockey.
Carolina held Vancouver to just 14 total shots on goal and with the Hurricanes only mustering 20 themselves, the 34 total shots was the lowest by any two teams in the NHL so far this season. With no shot coming easily, it would take a brilliant flash of skill for either side and Hurricanes right wing Andrei Svechnikov delivered.
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Similarly to how he assisted Staal’s first goal against Toronto, Svechnikov used his size and speed to gain the inside edge on the defender. Then, he drove to the slot and fired a shot to the far post that beat Demko. Playing on Staal’s line, Svechnikov has looked like he’s gained some of that confidence back that he was seemingly missing.
“I guess that’s my play,” Svechnikov said. “I gotta do [that] more often.”
Svechnikov needed less than two minutes to score in the second period and with a tired Canucks team also playing their second half of a back-to-back, the Canes battened down the hatches for the final 38 minutes.
As time ticked down, Hurricanes netminder Dustin Tokarski got his first NHL shutout since 2022. Tokarski became the third Carolina Hurricanes netminder to register a shutout this season, joining Pyotr Kochetkov and Spencer Martin. The Canes are the only NHL team to have three or more goaltenders earn a shutout.
Tokarski didn’t face a lot of shots but turned everything away. You can’t ask for more from a goaltender, especially one who wasn’t even signed to an AHL team at the beginning of the year.
“The goose egg is just a cherry on top,” Tokarski said. “That’s a good team on the other side, and the guys limited them tonight and made my job easy. So it was a lot of fun.”
The Canes will get Saturday off but return on Sunday for their third game in four days. With Eric Staal’s jersey retirement ceremony beforehand, the Canes will look to get a win against the Anaheim Ducks with puck drop at 5 p.m.
