The Carolina Hurricanes dropped the first of their back-to-back road trip games to the Toronto Maple Leafs 5-2 on Saint Patrick’s Day.
In a skilled and fast-paced matchup, turnovers hurt the Hurricanes (44-15-8) all game long. The Maple Leafs (41-18-9) wore their green and white Saint Patrick’s Day jerseys for the occasion, and luck seemed to be on their side from the jump.
The game’s first frame provided chances on both ends of the ice, but just 2:54 into the period, Toronto center Zach Aston-Reese tipped a shot past Canes goaltender Pyotr Kochetkov and gave the Leafs the early lead.
Carolina spent a lengthy shift within Toronto’s end just over midway through the period, but then the home team went the other way as Leafs right wing Mitch Marner danced around Canes center Martin Necas and sent a quick release off the post past Kochetkov to give Toronto a two-goal lead.
The Leafs scored two goals on their first seven shots to start the game, but Hurricanes defenseman Brady Skjei quickly cut the lead in half with his 14th goal of the season on a wrist shot that Toronto goaltender Ilya Samsonov whiffed on.
In the latter half of the frame, center Jordan Staal was called for a boarding penalty and put Carolina on the kill. Heading into the game, the team’s perfect penalty-kill streak was sitting at 12 games and just one game shy of the franchise record, but a fortuitous bounce that went off center Auston Matthews gave the home side a 3-1 lead heading into the first intermission.
The second frame was once again back and forth, but this time Carolina struck first. A passing clinic from the team’s second line resulted in Necas receiving a no-look pass from his linemate, left wing Teuvo Teravinen, and burying a wrist shot past Samsonov’s glove side.
But Toronto soon responded again when center Sam Lafferty jumped on a puck in center ice that Necas overskated and provided a cross-crease saucer pass to Aston-Reese for his second goal of the night. Carolina seemed to control play in the second period but helped the Leafs offense with a costly turnover.
In the third period, Carolina had chances to cut the lead in half but couldn’t capitalize on any of them. Defenseman Morgan Rielly smoked a shot past Kochetkov 8:56 into the third to cement the 5-2 win for the Leafs.
Carolina currently sits atop the Metropolitan Division with 96 points, just one ahead of the New Jersey Devils. The Canes will face off against the Philadelphia Flyers at 5 p.m. on Saturday, March 18 where the squad looks to bounce back quickly and take two points off a bottom-of-the-league Flyers team.
