Canes, after success on the road, can’t beat Panthers at home
Successful on the road, the Carolina Hurricanes couldn’t follow up at home Saturday.
Coming off the most productive five-game road trip in franchise history, the Canes were looking to please a near-sellout crowd at PNC Arena with a victory against the Florida Panthers. Provide some early Christmas cheers, so to speak.
Instead, the Panthers turned to rookie goalie Chris Driedger, who had a career-high 42 saves, and shut down the Canes 4-2.
The Canes (22-12-2), second in the NHL in penalty killing, gave up two power-play goals — to Brian Boyle in the second period and Jonathan Huberdeau early in the third. They took too many penalties, although assessed a few that irked Canes coach Rod Brind’Amour. They had 44 shots but had another 23 blocked by the Panthers (18-12-5), who won at PNC Arena for the first time since December 2015.
Nino Niederreiter and Lucas Wallmark had third-period goals for the Canes but they were of the too-little, too-late variety. After Niederreiter got a piece of a Teuvo Teravainen shot, Noel Acciari quickly countered for the Panthers with his seventh goal in three games for a 4-1 lead. Wallmark scored on the power play as Niederreiter earned an assist.
“That’s the frustrating part of the game,” Brind’Amour said. “We didn’t get the bounces tonight. The guys played hard. Their goalie was great. You’ve got to give him a lot of credit. He made a ton of really nice saves and I give their team a lot of credit for blocking a lot of shots.
“They were sacrificing and doing the things necessary to win a game. But I thought our game was solid.”
Coaches always fear the unpredictability of the first game home after a long road trip. There’s often the jet-lag factor and players relaxing and getting a little too cozy back on home ice. The Canes had an early jump but the penalties were disruptive.
“We take a lot of penalties,” Teravainen said. “I feel like we take a lot of penalties every game.”
The Canes were 4-0-1 on the road, taking nine of a possible 10 points, on a trip that began Dec. 10 against Edmonton. They also had center Erik Haula back in the lineup Saturday for the first time since Nov. 16 — Haula missing 15 games with a knee issue — and were at full strength.
But the Panthers (18-12-5) also have been playing well, scoring 13 goals in big wins over Ottawa and Dallas to end a nine-game homestand before the trip to Raleigh. Acciari had consecutive hat tricks for the Panthers in the two wins, becoming the first Florida player to do it since Pavel Bure in February 2001.
Evgenii Dadonov had a first-period breakaway to beat Canes goalie Petr Mrazek for his 13th goal and the lead. Then, the power plays.
Boyle scored after Aaron Ekblad floated in a shot from the point that Boyle, planted in front of Mrazek, redirected. Huberdeau’s goal came 26 seconds into the third period to make it 3-0 after a flurry of penalties with 30 seconds left in the second that left the crown, and the Canes, in an ornery mood.
The Canes’ Andrei Svechnikov was called for his second high-sticking penalty of the game and also for unsportsmanlike conduct, and defenseman Joel Edmundson for an unsportsmanlike penalty. The Panthers’ Brett Connolly, who Edmundson believed had embellished the call against Svechnikov, and Josh Brown both were hit with unsportsmanlike penalties.
Edmundson and Brown dropped the gloves and were ready to trade punches. The crowd wanted it. The refs did not, separating the two players. When the period ended, Canes fans booed the refs off the ice.
Brind’Amour said he did not know why Svechnikov was given an unsportsmanlike call. Neither did the Canes’ Jordan Martinook, an alternate captain who was on the ice conferring with the refs.
“He didn’t really explain it to me,” Martinook said. “I think he might have given (Connolly) an unsportsmanlike for embellishment and then just put an extra one on ‘Svech.’ I don’t know. I don’t ref, I play.”
Driedger, big in net at 6-4 and 205 pounds, is the first Florida goalie to have a shutout in his first NHL start — Nov. 30 against the Nashville Predators — and was in charge, square to the shooters and poised throughout Saturday’s game as Sergei Bobrovsky was given the night off. Driedger, in his third game of the season and first since Dec. 3, faced 20 shots in the third.
“Over the course of the season you get some goalie wins and that was one of them,” Panthers coach Joel Quenneville said.
This story was originally published December 21, 2019 at 9:41 PM.
