So far, so good for the Carolina Hurricanes in 2019. Thanks to a 4-2 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets at PNC Arena Friday night, the Canes have won two straight in the new year and three in a row overall.
Forward Greg McKegg, playing his first game of the season on an emergency recall, scored the game-winning goal and added an assist for the Canes (18-17-5). Forwards Micheal Ferland and Sebastian Aho, along with defenseman Dougie Hamilton, also scored. Goalie Curtis McElhinney stopped 22 of 24 Blue Jackets (23-14-3) shots.
For the second night in a row, the Canes jumped out to a big lead, saw the other team cut it to one and then held on late for the win.
“A little crazy, yeah,” head coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “I thought the guys, to a man, were on it. It obviously helped to get the lead … it’s a lot easier to play with that. Every part of our game was pretty solid. But they’ve got a great team over there. You could see their high-end players take over for a couple minutes and they got themselves back into the game. But I thought we came back in the third and played fairly well.”
Columbus nearly scored the game’s first goal shorthanded, but McElhinney came up with a glove stop on Blue Jackets forward Cam Atkinson’s slapshot off the rush.
“When we need a save, [McElhinney] gets it,” Brind’Amour said. “They had a lot of rush opportunities; they were flying at us. You’re kind of like, ‘Oh no’, but he just calms it down. He makes a big save when he has to, gets a whistle when he has to just to kind of get us the right change. Whatever we need, he’s been great all year.”
The Canes jumped in front just after the power play expired; Ferland finished off a tic-tac-toe play with Aho and forward Justin Williams, snapping a shot past Bobrovsky from the left circle.
“I think our power play’s been obviously better as of late,” Ferland said. “We’ve just had better puck movement. We know our spots and I think it’s just bearing down and scoring.”
Hamilton made it 2-0 just over a minute later, zipping home a shot off the rush from above the circle. Forward Saku Maenalanen also earned an assist for his first NHL point. The goal was Hamilton’s second in the past two games after a prolonged slump.
“It helps,” Hamilton said. “You just play the same way but some of them go in, some of them don’t. You just try to stick with it.”
McKegg followed that up with his first goal as a Cane about seven minutes into the second period, tipping in a pass from defenseman Brett Pesce to put Carolina up 3-0.
“You just want to put your best foot forward and contribute anyway you can,” McKegg said. To chip in at this level is obviously special anytime you can and to cap off the win was pretty awesome.”
That goal prompted the Blue Jackets to replace Bobrovsky with Joonas Korpisalo, the second time in three games the Canes have chased an opponent’s starter.
The Blue Jackets scored twice in a span of 25 seconds late in the middle frame to make it 3-2; forward Oliver Bjorkstrand beat McElhinney over the glove with a quick whistle and forward Artemi Panarin drove through the defense and snapped a shot in with 3:55 left in the period.
“Apparently not as much as I would like,” Brind’Amour said of what the team learned from giving up a big lead the night before. “We talked about it. The guys understand. You’ve got to remember; you’re not going to play a perfect game. We’re fighting for inches. We come off it a little, but the other team’s getting paid a lot of money to do that too. So you have to give them some credit; they made some nice plays.”
“I know we’ve learned it enough this year. There’s one way to play for us. You’ve got to keep your foot on the gas; you’ve got to keep playing in your face hockey. The minute you take a breath, that’s the time that it’s in our net. So we’ve definitely learned our lesson over this year.”
Columbus pulled Korpisalo for an extra skater with 1:40 left in the third period, but could not find the equalizer, and Aho put the game away with an empty-net goal with two seconds left, securing the Canes’ first three-game winning streak since late November.
“I think we let off the gas a little bit yesterday and a little bit at the second today,” Hamilton said. “But other than, that, obviously great goaltending is huge. We’re playing consistent; we’re moving the puck well. The power play’s scoring. We just have to keep sticking to our game.”
The Canes will be back in action against the Senators in Ottawa Sunday afternoon.
