Recap: Canes Storm Back to Top Blackhawks

The Carolina Hurricanes scored four straight goals to erase a two-goal deficit en route to a 6-3 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks.
The win extends the Canes' winning streak to five games and their point streak to 12 games (9-0-3) and ensures that the team will finish no lower than second place in the Central Division.

HIGHLIGHTS | PHOTO GALLERY | STATISTICS

The Difference

The Hurricanes' dogged work ethic is an embodiment of their head coach, which allows them to be competitive in virtually every game they play. Their talent level is what makes them elite.
"It wasn't a great game tonight. We got by with a lot of good efforts," head coach Rod Brind'Amour said. "The talent we have on the team kind of won us this game."
The line of Andrei Svechnikov, Sebastian Aho and Teuvo Teravainen was surgical in its attack, striking three times in a row to flip a 2-1 deficit into a 4-2 advantage.
Svechnikov scored two goals separated by less than 10 minutes of game time, first in the final five minutes of the second period and then again in the first five minutes of the third.
Teuvo Teravainen won an offensive-zone faceoff, and the Canes executed a set play. Svechnikov dropped the puck off for Jaccob Slavin, who returned the favor at the point. From downtown, Svechnikov let go of a wrist shot that hopped off a defending Nikita Zadorov and past Collin Delia.

"I feel like we always just work and work. Whatever the score is, we just try to get to our game. When we do that, we play pretty good and get some goals," Teravainen said. "It just feels like we always have a chance to come back."
Early in the third, Svechnikov struck again, this a display of raw talent, a filthy individual effort that was jumpstarted by his teammates in the defensive zone. Brady Skjei lifted the stick of Dylan Strome, and Slavin poked the puck ahead. Aho helped it along into the neutral zone, where Teravainen hit Svechnikov in stride. From there, the young Russian went to work. He motored past Ian Mitchell and shrugged off his illegal stick work in the process to roof a backhander and put the Canes ahead, 3-2.

"That confidence, you can see he's feeling it again," Brind'Amour said. "When he's on, he's pretty unstoppable."
Just about three minutes later, the dynamic trio struck again. Svechnikov won a battle along the right-side boards, and Aho took possession. He dropped a no-look pass to Teravainen in the slot, and the quiet Finn who always looks to pass before he shoots rifled a top-shelf wrister blocker side past Delia.

That goal, the fourth straight the Canes scored after being down 2-0 in the first period, held up as the game winner.
"They're so skilled and fast," Slavin said of the Canes' top line. "Their hockey sense is through the roof, and their skill is with the best of them."
Svechnikov, Aho and Teravainen combined for eight points (3g, 5a) on the night. In the five games since Teravainen returned to the lineup, the line has combined for 26 points (9g,17a).
Yep, that's pretty good.
"[Teravainen] makes players around him better, clearly, and has since day one of being here. I think that was really evident tonight," Brind'Amour said. "He's a big part of what we do. He was great tonight."

Plus/Minus

Minus: The first period
The Canes didn't have their best in the first period. Alex DeBrincat thieved the puck on the penalty kill and scored on a shorthanded breakaway to put the Blackhawks up 1-0 at the 6:20 mark of the first period. Mike Hardman doubled Chicago's lead when he pounced on a rebound about six minutes later.
"We weren't great. We got stung," Brind'Amour said. "Sometimes we try to do too much and get away from the game we need to play."
The Canes had trailed by two goals four times before tonight - three times 2-0 and once 3-1 - and had a 1-2-1 record in those games. They recovered tonight to add another win to this incredibly random and probably meaningless statistic.
"We were just a little bit off and a little bit slow," Svechnikov said. "Roddy said to us a couple of words, and we came out ready."
Plus: The second and third periods
Nino Niederreiter tallied a pair of goals, including the team's second empty-net goal of the game, but it was his first scored at the 4:32 mark of the second period that got the Canes on the board and their motor running.
The play began with Morgan Geekie, who, with time and space behind the net, attempted Svechnikov's patented lacrosse move. Duncan Keith read the play, and when the puck rolled off Geekie's blade, he opted for plan B and centered to a wide-open Niederreiter in the slot.

The Canes rumbled to life from there, scoring again in the second and twice more in the first seven minutes and change of the third to take a 4-2 lead. DeBrincat's second goal of the game brought Chicago back within a goal, but Martin Necas and Niederreiter both found the empty net about a minute apart from each other to seal the victory.
"We have a confident group. We know what we're capable of when we play the right way and to our strengths. We knew we had to get to our game. We knew we weren't going to win the game in the second period. We just had to battle our way back in it," Slavin said. "In the third period we got to it a little bit more, and the skill kind of took over."

Stats Pack

6: Six different forwards - Vincent Trocheck (2a), Aho (2a), Niederreiter (2g), Svechnikov (2g, 1a), Teravainen (1g, 2a) and Necas (1g, 1a) - recorded multi-point nights.
9: With two assists, Aho extended his season-long point streak to nine games (6g, 11a).
20: With his two goals, Niederreiter is now the second player to reach the 20-goal mark this season. Since joining the Canes in Jan. 2019, Niederreiter has tallied 45 goals, which ranks third on the team behind Aho and Svechnikov in that span.

He's Going to Do It Again, Isn't He?

Yup. It's going to happen again.
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Quote of the Night

"We want to make sure we're playing the right way every night and making sure we have that playoff mode engaged. … We don't want to take any steps back these last couple of games. We want to keep pushing forward, keep getting better and hit the ground running when playoffs do start." - Jaccob Slavin

Up Next

It's déjà vu all over again (again) on Thursday when the Canes and Blackhawks meet for the third straight game and eighth and final time this season.