Sebastian Aho and the Carolina Hurricanes are on some kind of a roll right now. The team’s top forward scored his second-career hat trick Sunday as the Canes topped the Nashville Predators 6-3 at PNC Arena for their seventh win in eight games.
Aho scored at even strength, on the power play and shorthanded and added an assist for the Canes (22-18-5) against the Predators (27-16-4). Forward Justin Williams also scored for Carolina and has goals in five straight games (tying his career high) and points in seven. Forwards Lucas Wallmark and Saku Maenalanen added the other goals, forwards Teuvo Teravainen and Micheal Ferland each had two assists for the second straight game and goalie Petr Mrazek stopped 20 of 23 Predators shots.
“I think that was probably one of our better 60-minute efforts all year,” Brind’Amour said. “We had a couple lapses but they were more individual mistakes than actual team breakdowns or anything. I thought we played just as solid as we could.”
Following a chippy start to the game that saw a few penalties and a fight between Ferland and Predators forward Austin Watson, Aho put the Canes in front with 4:16 to play in the first period. He got behind the Predators’ defenders and beat Rinne on the breakaway to make it 1-0. Aho put up five goals and six points for the Canes over two home games this weekend.
“Obviously linemates are huge, they’re really good right now,” Aho said. “They’ve been feeding me. Last game I got a couple lucky bounces. You get some confidence out of it. It gets a let bit easier when you score one. You get some confidence and that makes it a little bit easier to score.”
Maenalanen put Carolina up by a pair just a couple minutes later; he took a behind-the-net feed from defenseman Justin Faulk and roofed a shot top shelf from the slot for a 2-0 lead.
Predators forward Colton Sissons cut the Canes’ lead in half early in the second with a four-on-four goal, finishing a cross-crease feed from defenseman Roman Josi to make it 2-1.
Aho restored Carolina’s two-goal lead with a power-play goal just 20 seconds later, one-timing a pass from Ferland past Rinne from the left circle and putting Carolina up 3-1.
“That’s what has to happen,” Brind’Amour said. “There’s always going to be mistakes and then it’s always about that next shift. We had the one breakdown that was not very good and then we scored 20 seconds later. That’s always huge, that next shift, to not let them get too much momentum going.”
Wallmark pushed the Canes’ lead to 4-1 about nine minutes into the second; he buried a shot stick side on Rinne off a two-on-one rush.
Just over a minute later, Carolina added insult to injury with another power-play goal as Williams tipped a puck home to make it 5-1 and chase Rinne from the Nashville net in favor of Juuse Saros. Ferland’s assist on that goal gave him four helpers on the weekend.
“[We’re] just sticking to the game plan,” Ferland said. “We haven’t changed the way we play; we’re still shooting pucks. [Brind’Amour] just told us don’t change anything, keep playing the way we’ve been playing. We’re finally getting bounces.”
Predators forward Filip Forsberg cut the Canes’ lead to three with a shorthanded goal with 5:31 left in the second period. He tallied again from the doorstep with 6:27 left in the third period to make it a 5-3 game.
Nashville went on the power play and pulled Saros for an extra skater with over three minutes left, but Aho beat a defender down the ice to complete his hat trick into the empty net.
The win moves the Canes, depending on the New York Islanders’ result Sunday night, within three points of the second wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference. The team will be back in action Tuesday night with a trip to New York to face the Rangers.
“We had to have that,” Brind’Amour said. “We knew that with where we were. A lot of teams that are above us have had that already, to get to that point. Now we still need a few more to even get up in that group. But we’ve made a pretty good [push]. We’ve talked about just focusing on one game at a time. Whether we win or lose, it’s always about that next one. We’re on a seven of eight, but for us now we’re preparing for our next game in New York. We’ve got to go win that game. I think it’s been good to just focus on the one game approach.”
