Continuing their win streak, the Carolina Hurricanes (8-2-0) added one more to the stat sheet after a come-from-behind 4-2 victory over the Washington Capitals (8-3-0), extending their win streak to six games.
Involved in every goal but the empty netter, center Martin Necas continued to put on a clinic against the Capitals, recording a goal and two primary assists. Defenseman Dmitry Orlov was the beneficiary of the Czech’s two apples, finding the net twice against his former team.
Coming into the game, the Capitals were second in the league — behind only the Canes — in shots allowed per game with just over 25. Tonight, Carolina almost doubled that average as they poured on the shots against a tired team.
“That probably had a lot to do with it as they did have to play last night, but we played pretty hard,” said head coach Rod Brind’Amour. “To everybody’s credit, we came out with a pretty good game plan and stuck with it even having a little bit of a setback in the first.”
Extending his point streak to six games, Necas marked a career-high three multi-point games in a row and his 18 points put him tied for sixth in the league. Necas becomes the second player in Hurricanes/Whalers history with 15-plus points through the team’s first 10 games, joining center Eric Staal who had 18 in the 2005-2006 season.
“It’s weird to say that his game is different, that’s what he does,” Brind’Amour said. “He’s got that ability, his skating is so good and you can definitely see the confidence … obviously he’s been real special here to start the season.”
Orlov opened the scoring with his second of the year just over 14 minutes into the first period. Taking a drop pass from Necas, who drew two defenders with him, Orlov skated in tight and beat Capitals netminder Charlie Lindgren high on the glove side.
It didn’t take long for Washington to respond when left wing Alexander Ovechkin — from his usual spot — beat Hurricanes goaltender Pyotr Kochetkov just under the bar. One step closer to breaking what was thought to be an unbreakable record, Ovechkin answered his close friend’s tally.
“He’s one of the best goal scorers in the league,” Orlov said. “He’s a legend and a nice friend. It sucks that he scored today but in another way, he’s chasing the record. I’m happy for him.”
It was clear that Russian comradery only goes so far as former teammates as Kochetkov wasn’t on the nice end of Oveckin’s 860th career goal.
“Every time he tells me a lot of bad words, ‘I score on you, I score on you’, all Russians do this, it’s not a problem for me,” Kochetkov said.
Having to make multiple one-on-one saves throughout the night, Kochetkov kept pace and stepped up to help his team get the two points. Late in the third, Kotchekov made a huge one-on-one save against Ovechkin, preventing the game-tying goal and getting his revenge from earlier.
“That’s the big state of the game for me, we’re going to get a ton of chances — [Lindgren] played great, he kept them in it — and then it’s the wrong guy getting loose and [Kochetkov] made a heck of a save there.”
Just over 30 seconds after Ovechkin’s goal in the first, the Capitals got their second goal to take a 2-1 lead late in the first. Off a couple of unfortunate bounces, right wing Brandon Duhaime stuffed the puck over the line, flipping the momentum of the game.
Even when they fall behind, Carolina continues to respond by putting the past behind them. After going down 2-1 in the final minute of the first period, the Canes came out in the second scoring two goals in the opening six minutes to retake the lead.
“Give the guys the credit, they turned the page and went at it the rest of the way,” Brind’Amour said.
The second line worked in combination to score the Canes’ second goal of the game. Deep in his own zone, center Jesperi Kotkaniemi sprung a breakout, finding left wing Eric Robinson along the boards, who quickly found Necas. Taking advantage of a slow pass behind him, Necas went from a toe-drag to his backhand to roof the puck past Lindgren.
Three minutes later — taking advantage of tired legs — Necas, Orlov and defenseman Jalen Chatfield moved the puck around the point until Necas laid it off to Orlov, who blasted a one-timer to the far side for his second of the game.
“We always would love him to shoot more, and sometimes he starts doing little other things with it, but when he gets those opportunities to do the one time, he has a heavy, heavy shot and you saw that tonight,” Brind’Amour said.
After failing to score in the team’s first six outings, Orlov now has three in the past four games. The Hurricanes would love for him to keep putting pucks in the net in order to make up for a lot of the blue-line goal-scoring they lost in the offseason.
Special teams for the Hurricanes were not ideal, going 0-3 on the power play, although they were able to go 3-4 on the penalty kill. Necas and Hurricanes defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere took penalties at the same time, sending them both to the box immediately and leading directly to Ovechkin’s goal.
The Hurricanes were just short of scoring a short-handed goal after center Sebastian Aho was able to get it up the ice with the help of his linemates, but the puck ended up getting kicked away from him by Lindgren.
Solidifying the result and concluding the scoring for the night, right wing Andrei Svechnikov scored an empty-netter with nine seconds left in the game, extending his point streak to five games.
The Hurricanes return to Lenovo Center on Tuesday at 7 p.m. to take on the Philadelphia Flyers.
