Carolina Hurricanes: Takeaways from a Complete Game Against Nashville

The Carolina Hurricanes convert on the powerplay thanks to Svech.

The Carolina Hurricanes boast one of the better than average powerplay units of the league currently, and against the worst penalty kill in the NHL, it showed. I mentioned in my preview that the Hurricanes need to score on the powerplay, regardless of the situation. To my chagrin and that of fellow Caniacs, they did just that.

The powerplay goal, Svechnikov’s fifth of the season, and twenty-third overall happened a scant five seconds into the man advantage. Just an absolute beauty from the bottom faceoff dot. Like Alex Ovechkin, you don’t want to leave Andrei wide open, especially when it’s on the powerplay.

It is also Svechnikov’s fourth game-winning goal of the campaign, surpassing his previous season record of three. The Hurricanes would find themselves again on the man advantage with a minute and twenty-nine seconds remaining in regulation. The Preds did a masterful job defending against this truncated powerplay, however, preventing the Canes from establishing a four-goal lead.

I say truncated because the on-ice call was a double-minor against Yannick Weber, resulting in less than half the second powerplay opportunity to be played out. If the Hurricanes had the full four minutes, the Predators would likely have given up a second powerplay goal on the night. And last, but not least: