Hurricanes defeated in Motown by the Detroit Red Wings in OT

In a game where the only Hurricane to turn up to this one was Carolina’s netminder, this was a poor performance from the Carolina Hurricanes in relation to the standards they have set for themselves over the course of the season. In a game that Carolina would have been blown out of if the goaltending wasn’t up to scratch, the Hurricanes really struggled to get their feet under them in this one.

This was a particularly poor game from the Hurricanes, but Antti Raanta stood on his head. If there was ever any question about the capabilities of the Canes backup netminder, those went up in flames tonight. Antti Raanta was flat-out incredible. Making saves on odd-man rushes, shots aimed to bank in off of him, one-timers, cross-crease passes, Raanta gave the Canes multiple miraculous saves.

The Ahovainen combination set a franchise record in this game. On the Sebastian Aho powerplay goal, Teuvo Teravainen and Aho became the pair to combine on the most goals in franchise history. A niche stat, but it does speak to how good the Finns have been together. For the 172nd time in their careers, they combined and it was a great Finnish from the pair to put the Canes up 1-0. Yes, that was a pun.

Yes, it is sad to see the Canes lose their five-game winning streak but they manage to rebuild the confidence of their injury-riddled Finnish netminder. They manage to get a lot of the Finns playing well throughout the lineup. This is a situation that the Carolina Hurricanes can take a lot from. They did not play well, but they got a point. They’ve got a lot of room to improve but still got something from it. Not a great result, but under the circumstances, it could have been worse.

Question for Cardiac Cane readers: What did you takeaway from this game?