Kochetkov wins eighth straight to start season, Hurricanes defeat Bruins

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Pyotr Kochetkov won his eighth straight start to begin the season, and the Carolina Hurricanes ended the Boston Bruins’ eight-game point streak with a 2-1 victory at Lenovo Center on Tuesday.

“It’s just my job, I don’t know what to say,” Kochetkov said. “If you don’t tell me after every game, I don’t think about it (the streak) much. My focus is more about the quality of my game.”

Sebastian Aho scored the tiebreaking goal on the rush at 10:19 of the third period. William Carrier tipped a pass from Andrei Svechnikov to Aho, who reached to his backhand to chip the puck under Jeremy Swayman’s blocker and make it 2-1.

It was Carolina’s first home game since going 3-1-1 on a five-game road trip.

“After a long road trip, you want to start the homestand the right way, and we were able to do that,” Aho said. “I thought we were creating enough offense to score more than two, but obviously we didn’t have to score more than two. It’s just tilting the ice in our advantage, and I thought we played a solid game.”

Jackson Blake also scored for the Hurricanes (10-2-2), who extended their point streak to four games (3-0-1). Kochetkov made 14 saves.

“We knew coming in, that was the way the game was going to go, so it’s having the right mindset,” Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “They stick to what they’re doing, and we stick to what we’re doing, and we had a game plan. I thought we stuck with what we had to do. Pretty good game by this group.”

Pavel Zacha scored, and Swayman made 28 saves for the Bruins (9-3-1), who were 7-0-1 in their previous eight.

"Overall, I didn’t mind our game,” Boston coach Marco Sturm said. “We had a good jump right away from the start. There’s small details, puck management, that they did just a little bit better than us. Other than that, I thought we played a pretty good road game.”

The Bruins took a 1-0 lead with a power-play goal at 1:31 of the first period. David Pastrnak made a backhand pass to Elias Lindholm, who spun in the left face-off circle and fed Zacha for a tap-in at the right post.

“I think we had a good start. That’s something we want to be better at,” Zacha said. “A lot of 1-on-1 battles, and I think we did pretty good for most of the game. But then, in the end, they were able to score and we weren’t.”

Blake tied it 1-1 at 19:08. Nikolaj Ehlers stripped the puck from Frederic Brunet below the goal line on the forecheck and passed to Blake, who skated it out of the left corner and scored around Swayman’s left pad with the goaltender sprawled in the crease.

“He definitely has that confidence right now,” Aho said of Blake. “He’s silky, but he’s also pretty strong on his stick. It takes some courage to challenge the guy like that. He’s definitely feeling it.”

Carolina killed two minor penalties in the final 4:41 of the third.

“That’s our game. We want to shut down those opportunities,” Hurricanes defenseman Jaccob Slavin said. “It’s never fun to kill penalties, especially against a power play like that late in the game. It was a great unit of four, and ‘Koochie’ made some great saves at the end too.”

NOTES: Carolina forward Taylor Hall was expected to return after missing five games with an upper-body injury, but he left the morning skate with a different injury and will “be out for a little bit,” according to Brind’Amour. … Hurricanes forward Mark Jankowski had a personal six-game goal streak end (six goals). He had no shots on goal and played 17:16 after missing four games with a lower-body injury. … Ehlers (six points; three goals, three assists) and Blake (six points; two goals, four assists) each extended his point streak to four games. … Carrier has eight assists through 14 games after having 11 assists in 70 games last season. … Pastrnak (assist) has six points (three goals, three assists) in a three-game point streak.