The Carolina Hurricanes returned home to PNC Arena to face a hungry Central Division team. Backed by a tremendous effort in goal by Pekka Rinne, the Nashville Predators shut out the Carolina Hurricanes by the final score of 3-0. Let’s take a look at three takeaways from Friday’s game.
Coming off a rough 3-2 loss by the New York Rangers on Wednesday night, the Carolina Hurricanes needed a quality game to get back on track. Unfortunately, that did not happen. The Hurricanes struggled all night and failed to get much of anything going.
Early on, this seemed like it was going to be a goalie duel. Petr Mrazek and Pekka Rinne were both stopping everything that came their way. That was, until Rocco Grimaldi scored on what seemed like a harmless dump-out by Nick Bonino that broke the ice. The goal was scored at the 11:45 mark of the first period.
From there, Nashville continued to dominate. Whether it was the Predators’ defensemen that were blocking shots left and right or their forwards that were suffocating Carolina in the offensive zone, they were nearly unstoppable overall.
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As Nashville kept with their offensive possession, eventually holes were bound to be created in the Canes’ defensive efforts. This happened when Calle Jankrok scored from a perfect feed by Filip Forsberg. At this point, it’s 2-0 Nashville late in the first. With that, it just felt Carolina didn’t have a chance.
The game really felt sealed at the 16:32 mark of the 2nd period when Austin Watson scored a great deflection goal on what seemed like a harmless shot by Mattias Ekholm. The play was developed when Ekholm distanced himself from Jordan Martinook (who slipped while attempting to play around him).
This game is one Carolina will hope to soon forget. The entire game felt one-sided with little to no momentum throughout. What’s done is done, so let’s take a look at three takeaways from Friday night’s game.