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The Carolina Hurricanes finished off their four-game road trip with a loss, falling 3-2 to the Minnesota Wild last night.
It was a relatively uneventful opening frame as the teams combined for just 14 shots. With few quality chances exchanged, the game remained scoreless through 20 minutes. The pace did pick up in the second period but despite the Hurricanes being the better team in the first half of the frame, the Wild opened the scoring midway through the period, as Kevin Fiala beat Frederik Andersen with a great wrist shot. There were some pretty decent opportunities going both ways after that, but it remained 1-0 Wild heading into the final frame.
In the third period, the Wild wasted little time extending their lead, as Carolina was sloppy with the puck on a zone exit and Kirill Kaprizov got a shot off then followed up to bury his own rebound. Then only about a minute after that, Frederick Gaudreau snapped a nice, low shot past Andersen, quickly making it a 3-0 Minnesota lead. The Hurricanes did attempt to mount a comeback, with two quick goals from Andrei Svechnikov making it a close game, but the Wild ended up generating the bulk of the quality chances after that and held on for a 3-2 win.
The Hurricanes managed 39 shots and while there were some lapses for sure, it wasn’t a poor game for Carolina. They were up against tough competition at the end of a road trip and a bounce going the other way could’ve changed the outcome.
That said, Carolina continues to allow some pretty good chances off the rush and made some pretty careless mistakes in their own end. Despite Andersen facing only 27 shots, he was certainly relied upon.
With the loss, Carolina takes just three of eight possible points from their four-game road trip. I don’t think the Hurricanes performed nearly as poor during the stretch of games as that stat may lead one to believe, but they’ll also need to recover quickly to keep their placement near the top of the Eastern Conference.
The Hurricanes will be back in action on Wednesday against the Florida Panthers.
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PollMaker
OTHER ARTICLES FROM FEBRUARY
Hurricanes drop both games of back-to-back, fall to Leafs and Senators
Hurricanes beat Bruins 6-0 to sweep season series 
Carolina Hurricanes Blogger • 
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