The Good, The Bad...
A part of Raanta's quality start of the night was his work on the penalty kill, playing a role in the team holding Vancouver's power play 0/2. Carolina's man advantage was also unsuccessful on their two tries to kick off the evening, but special teams would remain a storyline as the game progressed.
Unfortunately, at five-on-five, Vancouver remained the better team, extending their lead to 2-0 to start the middle stanza's scoring. Ilya Mikheyev added insurance for his club, beating a Carolina forward to the back post before slamming one behind Raanta.
The first of two times missed defensive assignments would hurt the Canes in the frame, thankfully, the group had an immediate response. Just 29 seconds later, Jordan Martinook got the monkey off of his back.
His first goal of the year, #48 took a slip pass from Jesper Fast to start what would be a really nice stretch of play for the visitors.
Perhaps Carolina's best segment of the night, they were clawing for an equalizing, but instead, the other aforementioned missed defensive assignment allowed the Canucks to reclaim their two-goal lead via J.T. Miller.
As frustrating as the occurrences were for Rod Brind'Amour's group, there was hope heading to the third period.
On their third power play chance of the period, their fifth of the night, Brady Skjei came up in a big spot.
Despite not being on either of the man advantage units, #76 was on the ice late in the effort as the team was transitioning to five-on-five play, and put home a fantastic feed from Dmitry Orlov to make it a 3-2 game.
