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The Carolina Hurricanes are continuing to establish themselves as legitimate Stanley Cup contenders following the NHL trade deadline, extending their win streak to four games against the New York Islanders yesterday.
Carolina got off to a bit of a slow start in the first 10 minutes or so, where Pyotr Kochetkov had to be good, but the Hurricanes quickly took over in the back half of the frame. Seth Jarvis opened the scoring with about seven minutes to go in the period, before finishing off a nice passing play with Jake Guentzel only minutes later, quickly putting Carolina up by two.
Then just as it looked like the period was coming to a close, Martin Necas made a great move to get to some open space after a zone entry and wired a perfect shot past Ilya Sorokin with only about a second remaining in the period, putting the Hurricanes up by three through 20 minutes.
The Hurricanes picked up right where they left off in the second period, dominating the first half of the frame. While they couldn’t convert again, they gave New York all but nothing in the way of chances for much of the frame, and held their huge lead going into the second intermission.
Kyle Palmieri did get the Islanders on the board in the third period, but Carolina did a great job shutting down chances from there, not allowing the Islanders to pull the game back within reach. Then following an early goalie pull from New York, Jake Guentzel buried an empty netter, securing a 4-1 win for the Islanders.
With the win, the Hurricanes sweep their three-game road trip, and continue to look excellent post-deadline. Their road success has been a key to their resurgence since the start of 2024, going 11-1-1 in away games since January 1.
It’s obviously a very small sample size, but through five games with both Jake Guentzel and Evgeny Kuznetsov in the lineup, the Hurricanes may be more dangerous than ever. Scoring hasn’t always come easy for this team, but now with two very capable lines, it seems it's not going to be an issue moving forward.
Highlighting Guentzel and Kuznetsov again, each player is now riding a four-game point streak. Over the four-game win streak, Guentzel has two goals and eight points, while Kuznetsov has two goals and five points.
It’s going to be interesting to see how the lineup changes once Teuvo Teravainen and Jack Drury are healthy, but combinations of Guentzel-Aho-Jarvis and Svechnikov-Kuznetsov-Necas look like they could remain together going forward. We know Brendan Lemieux will come out of the lineup, but after that, it gets a little more difficult to predict. If Jesperi Kotkaniemi comes out, I think a Teravainen-Drury-Noesen and Martinook-Staal-Fast bottom-six could be a great look.
In goal, Pyotr Kochetkov also had another good performance in the win. While the Hurricanes ran away with the game pretty early on, Kochetkov was counted on at times, especially early. The tandem of Kochetkov and Frederik Andersen will be another storyline to track heading into the postseason, as we wait and see whether one goalie or the other emerges as the clear starter.
Another development was that the New York Rangers lost their game yesterday, meaning the Hurricanes are now just two points back for top spot in the Metropolitan Division, with each team at 13 games remaining. Carolina doesn’t have the tiebreaker advantage (with less regulation wins), but that’s a lot of time to make up a little bit of ground.
Carolina will be back in action tomorrow, as they look to extend their win streak to five games when they host the Philadelphia Flyers in the first game of a back-to-back set.
OTHER ARTICLES FROM MARCH
- Canes acquire Jake Guentzel from Penguins, Evgeny Kuznetsov from Capitals
- How much do Guentzel and Kuznetsov improve the Hurricanes’ Cup chances?
- Hurricanes shut out Panthers, regain ground in Metro Division race
- Canes sweep Ontario back-to-back, building momentum post-trade deadline 
Carolina Hurricanes Blogger • 
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