Ward boosts Hurricanes past Penguins for fourth straight win

RALEIGH, N.C. - Derek Ryan and Sebastian Aho each scored in the second period, and Cam Ward made 27 saves to help the Carolina Hurricanes defeat the Pittsburgh Penguins 2-1 at PNC Arena on Friday.
The Hurricanes (18-12-7) have won four in a row and are 7-1-0 in their past eight games. Ward extended his winning streak to six with his 305th NHL victory to tie Billy Smith for 27th place on the all-time list.

WATCH: [All Penguins vs. Hurricanes highlights]
"As a defensive corps, I think we did a really good job from top to bottom," said Jaccob Slavin, who skated a team-high 21:53. "They've got a lot of high-end talent on that team, so you've got to take away as much as you can with them because they're going to make plays out of nothing."
Tristan Jarry made 31 saves for the Penguins (19-17-3), who are 3-6-0 in their past nine games.

Brian Dumoulin gave the Penguins a 1-0 lead at 4:34 of the first period with his second goal of the season. Jake Guentzel carried the puck through the neutral zone and set up Dumoulin in the slot. Jarry had the secondary assist, his second point of the season.
"We get the first goal [so] we accomplished what we wanted in the first period," Pittsburgh coach Mike Sullivan said. "But I thought there was a letdown in the second period. We spent a lot of time in our defensive zone."
The Hurricanes tied the game 1-1 on Ryan's eighth goal at 6:25 of the second. Elias Lindholm drew Jarry out of the crease before moving behind the net to set up Ryan for a short-side tap-in.
"He made a really nice move," said Ryan, who turned 31 on Friday. "It probably would have been a prettier goal if he buried it right off the bat there, but he had nice patience. I knew the goalie was way out of position because Lindholm faked him pretty good."
Twenty-one seconds after the Hurricanes had Slavin's goal nullified for goaltender interference, Aho made it 2-1. Jarry turned away a shot that trickled through the slot, but the puck came to Aho, who scored at 18:05.
"I thought we managed the puck really good in the second period," Hurricanes coach Bill Peters said. "It might have been our best period. We had some odd-man rushes that we could have capitalized on to get a little wiggle room, but we didn't."

Goal of the game

Aho's goal at 18:05 of the second period.

Save of the game

Ward stopped Evgeni Malkin's redirected shot with 48 seconds remaining in the first period.

Highlight of the game

Ryan's goal at 6:25 of the first period.

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They said it

"We had to turn the table on them by spending time in the offensive zone, hanging onto pucks, forcing them to expend energy defending us. I don't think we were stiff enough on pucks in the offensive zone, and we needed to do a better job as a group handling their pressure." -- Penguins coach Mike Sullivan
"Winning teams are able to grind their way to a hard 2-1 win against a really good Pittsburgh team. It's something this team has struggled to do in the past. It's a lot of little things adding up to victories [lately]: executing on the game plan, specialty teams have been better and goaltending has been great too." -- Hurricanes forward Derek Ryan

Need to know

Penguins forward Sidney Crosby was held to one shot on goal. He has had one shot or fewer in four of the past seven games. … The Penguins have not won back-to-back games since completing a four-game winning streak on Dec. 2 against the Buffalo Sabres... The Penguins played without five injured regulars: goaltender Matt Murray, defensemen Kris Letang, Justin Schultz and Chad Ruhwedel, and forward Bryan Rust. … After being held without a goal in his first 15 games, Aho has 11 in the past 22. … Ward has given up 11 goals during his six-game winning streak.

What's next

Penguins: At the Detroit Red Wings on Sunday (7 p.m. ET; ATTSN-PT, FS-D, NHL.TV)
Hurricanes: At the St. Louis Blues on Saturday (8 p.m. ET; FS-CR, FS-MW, NHL.TV)