The Hurricanes entered the All-Star break with a rousing 3-1 win over the Coyotes Saturday night.
Dmitry Orlov’s game-winner in the final minute of regulation put an exclamation point on a excellent performance by Carolina (28-15-5). Despite an immense amount of perseverance by Arizona (23-22-3), the Canes exercised even greater patience to stick to their game.
“You have to be patient,” Orlov said. “Keep doing what you need to do. We cannot be frustrated. Today we did everything right. It’s important.”
The Canes’ absolute dominance in the shot column jumped off the stat sheet. Carolina outshot Arizona 39-11 on the night and 32-3 in the final two periods. Holding the Coyotes shotless in the final 25 minutes and 26 seconds of the contest is an insane feat in itself, but the amount of buy-in it takes to pull that off is not lost on Carolina.
“That’s a full five-man effort out there all around the ice,” said Jaccob Slavin. “Forwards being good on the forecheck. That keeps them out of our zone. Backtracking really hard helps us be able to stay up. That’s something we’ve always talked about in here is limited in their chances. When you limit them to that many shots, it’s always going to help you get a chance to win the game.”
Martin Necas got Carolina going with a pivotal power play goal in the second period. After a Logan Cooley goal sent the Hurricanes into the first intermission down 1-0, Seth Jarvis extends his assist streak to four games by teeing up Necas for a zinging one-timer past Connor Ingram to put the Hurricanes on the board.
The extra space of the four on three power play allowed Necas to capitalize on some rare open space against a tenacious Coyotes defense. Arizona racked up a whopping 24 blocked shots throughout the game, more than doubling its total shots on goal. By clogging up shooting lanes with gusto, the Canes had to work that much harder for every scoring opportunity against an already admirable performance in net by Ingram.
Caniacs will need to wait another week and a half until Carolina’s first game after the All-Star break. Though concerns about losing this momentum over that much time is understandable, Rod Brind’Amour asserted the importance of using this rest to recharge going into the home stretch.
“We pushed to this point,” Brind’Amour said. “They need to get a mental break. That’s really what this is about. When we come back we’ve got to get right back out. Look to pick up where we left off.”
Brind’Amour and his squad will look to do just that when they return to PNC Arena Tuesday, Feb. 6 to host Vancouver. Puck drop is set for 7 p.m.