The Hurricanes fell flat with a 5-2 loss to the Wild on Sunday in PNC Arena.
The home crowd got a classic “experience Canes hockey” game featuring Carolina (25-15-5) more than doubling Minnesota (20-21-5) in shots, 42-19. Though the Canes generated plenty of chances, netminder Filip Gustavsson and the Wild simply executed better tonight.
“The first period we needed more,” said Rod Brind’Amour. “When you do everything you’re supposed to do, the way we want to do it, get our opportunities and then come out of there tied, that was deflating a little bit. We weren’t great in the third either. We tie it up, we had a couple of mental errors and they made you pay. Good for them. They did what they needed to do. We didn’t execute there.”
Another tough outing by Carolina’s power play didn’t help matters, going 0 for 4 on the evening. Though the opportunities were available — Seth Jarvis taking shots up close there, Brent Burns firing some blue line bombs there — the shots simply weren’t landing with a man advantage.
“I thought we had a lot of grade A’s,” said Sebastian Aho. “Especially the first two power plays, we had a lot of them. You score one of those and it’s a whole other story. Even the last one, we had grade A’s. Some other nights we’ve been scoring on those looks. Can’t get too frustrated. You try to keep working on it. I’m sure that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”
The Canes managed to stay competitive well into the third period despite some tough puck luck, but it simply wasn’t their night in the end. Michael Bunting knotted the game up at 2-2 with 11:43 to go, but a bad turnover by Brendan Lemieux allowed Minnesota to steal the momentum right back on a Joel Eriksson Ek goal. Two late empty-net goals later, the buzzer sounded to a 5-2 Carolina loss.
Gustavsson made a huge difference for the Wild. He not only racked up 40 saves but executed well to swallow up potential rebounds. When the puck did skitter away from him. Minnesota got there first to clear it away more often than more.
“It’s more about the other goal and ours,” Brind’Amour said. “He played really well. You got to give him credit. He made some real good saves. We could have got to the net more. You look at their first goal, it was a good tip. We weren’t able to do that until the first shift to the third. We were there at the net, we hit the crossbar. It was a tough night for us to get a bounce. It didn’t happen.”
On the flip side, the Hurricanes suffered from that rough puck luck early. Kirill Kaprizov notched both of the Wild’s first two goals on redirects, smartly slipping away from his marker to poke the puck past Antti Raanta. On both occasions, the d-man was more to blame than Raanta who hardly stood a chance once Kaprizov breaks free.
Though Carolina kept racking up shots all night, the frustration from not seeing that work pay off took its toll in the third.
“We were playing that 50/50 game,” said Jordan Staal. “Hoping for a little chip or a bounce instead of us pounding and driving into them. Usually if we play our game like we did in the first and continue with that, teams give in. We didn’t stay on the hammer and continue to drive it down their throat. Then it became a 50/50 period.”
The Canes will need to put that frustration behind them with a back-to-back coming up, first going to Boston on Wednesday before heading home to host New Jersey. Despite the disappointing result, the Hurricanes are focused on maintaining their composure going forward.
“It’s business as usual,” Aho said. “Bad game, good game, we always take a look at the video. What was good and what was bad and all that stuff. It doesn’t change the mindset. We take it a day at a time.”
Puck drops against the Bruins at 7:30 p.m.