The Canes suffered their first overtime loss of the season in a brutal 5-4 defeat to the New York Islanders on Thursday.
Carolina (13-8-1) played one of its highest-quality games of the season, but the results simply did not swing towards the home team. Despite generating several 36 scoring chances and 11 high-danger chances, racking up a ton of time in the offensive zone and allowing only 16 shots on goal by the Isles (9-7-6), a win just was not in the cards.
“That’s hockey,” said Rod Brind’Amour. “I got to give the guys a lot of credit. Those are the tough games when you’re doing everything right and you’re getting zero reward out of it. To stick with it, that’s positive.”
The Hurricanes fought hard to even the one point, willing in a game-tying goal with only 2.5 seconds remaining in the third. A huge scrum in front of Semyon Varlamov ended with Sebastian Aho wedging the puck past the Islanders netminder to force OT.
New York ultimately clinched the game in overtime in heartbreaking fashion. Seth Jarvis had a good feed from Aho in front of Varlamov, but Jarvis took a bit too long to pull the trigger, allowing Noah Dobson to poke the puck free and take it the other way. That turnover led to Matt Barzal’s game-winning goal on the other end.
Jarvis took on much of the blame for the Canes loss.
“Overtime, Fishy makes a great pass,” Jarvis said. “Nine times out of 10 that’s a shot. I know it’s a shot. It’s an elementary school play that you shoot that every time. I tried to make a little extra play, get too cute and screwed us in the end. A lot of it comes down to me and individual plays. We have that one in our grips. I thought we played a good game. A couple of mental errors screwed us.”
Allowing five goals in a game obviously isn’t a great look for Pyotr Kochetkov, who got his third consecutive start between the pipes. The stat sheet shows he let in nearly a nearly of New York’s shots on goal, but that doesn’t tell the whole story.
The Islanders emphasized quality over quantity with their chances. With the Canes dominating puck possession, Kochetkov had scant chance to get in a rhythm. When he did face those high-quality chances, Kochetkov got some sparse coverage from the defense, allowing Islanders to cash in on their few but deadly shots.
Though he’d certainly like to have a couple of those chances back, the 24-year-old netminder still has the skill to learn from this game and improve going forward.
“He knows he’s got to have a couple saves,” Brind’Amour said. “That’s the difference. You can’t go through a game without giving up a couple of grade-A opportunities. We got to get a few of those, and he will. He has. He did it the other night. We get that consistency in that position, then we’re in good shape.”
All game long, the eye test told an entirely different story than the box score. Jordan Staal picked up a fluke delay of game – puck over glass penalty early in the third period when he reached up to pull down an airborne but it clipped off his glove and out of play.
The scoring action got started in a similarly weird fashion. Jalen Chatfield chipped the puck into New York’s zone, then followed the puck for a quick shot on goal. Chatfield’s ensuing shot bounced off Varmalov and then over his head and into the net for the game’s first goal.
The Hurricanes will hope their quality play will yield better (maybe just luckier?) results next time out when Carolina hosts the Buffalo Sabres Saturday at 7 p.m.