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The Carolina Hurricanes were shut out by the Florida Panthers last night, losing 3-0.
Paul Stastny and Calvin de Haan were both scratches for the Hurricanes, with Jack Drury and Dylan Coghlan entering the lineup. With Frederik Andersen exiting practice with an injury yesterday, Antti Raanta started for the Hurricanes, while Pyotr Kochetkov dressed as a backup.
After a relatively even first half of the opening frame, Florida opened the scoring when Nick Cousins deflected Brandon Montour’s shot in front and while that was stopped, Cousins was there to bury the rebound. Carolina had a good chance to tie it right after, with Jack Drury missing an open net, but then the Panthers went back the other way with Sam Reinhart on a breakaway, but he was stopped on a great save by Antti Raanta. Despite being down a goal at intermission, it wasn’t a bad period for Carolina.
Florida had some great chances on a power play early in the second period, throwing about five or six shots on net, but they were all stopped by Raanta. We saw a relatively even frame after that without a ton of quality chances, as neither team could score and it remained 1-0 Panthers through 40 minutes.
The Hurricanes came out pretty strong in the third period but it was the Panthers who scored to extend the lead, with Aleksander Barkov converting on a power play off a give-and-go with Carter Verhaeghe. The Hurricanes did press after that but couldn’t convert and Sam Bennett buried a later empty netter in the final seconds to secure a 3-0 win for Florida.
There were games last season where the Hurricanes generated a lot of chances but just couldn’t capitalize. While they may not have had quite as many high-end chances as their 40 shots in this loss may indicate, it was still a similar story to those games last season, where Carolina just couldn’t score.
After throwing 70 shots on goal through the last two games, the Hurricanes have a single goal to show for. As I talked about in a recent article about Martin Necas’ hot start to the year, the Hurricanes are suffering from a huge lack of secondary scoring, past Necas, Sebastian Aho and Andrei Svechnikov.
Carolina is averaging just 2.85 goals per game, which ranks 23rd in the NHL. Teuvo Teravainen has been pretty invisible, with no goals and five assists in 13 games, while Jesperi Kotkaniemi hasn’t proved he’s capable of providing an impact while centering the second line yet. Even depth forwards like Jesper Fast, Jordan Staal and Derek Stepan have been held to three points or less. It’s likely the Hurricanes do figure this out and it’s just a slow start offensively, but it’s been an issue so far.
On a more positive note, it was cool seeing three of the Staal brothers in the same game, with Eric and Marc suiting up for Florida. It was also Eric’s 1300th game and was neat that it happened against his former team.
Despite the offensive struggles, Carolina is still 8-4-1 this season. They’ve been very competitive in a tough division and are still in a good spot if they can figure things out.
They’ll have an immediate chance to get back on track tonight, as they host the Edmonton Oilers.
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Hurricanes fire 55 shots on goal, squeeze past Lightning in shootout
Sebastian Aho scores hat trick, Canes beat Sabres for fourth straight win
Hurricanes’ four-game winning streak ends with loss to Maple Leafs
Martin Necas on his way to becoming a star with Hurricanes 
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