In Edmonton Tuesday night, the Carolina Hurricanes’ Cam Ward made 48 saves in delivering a 5-3 win to the Canes and sending the Oilers to a 1-4-0 record this season.
Jordan Staalled the Canes’ offense with a goal and four points on the night.
Teuvo Teravainen struck twice and Elias Lindholm and Jaccob Slavinadded markers for Carolina who improved to 2-1-1.
The win did not come easy as the Canes yielded 51 shots on goal and made Ward work for every save.
“We started on time and then we just got sloppy and got a little rattled with a too many men on the ice penalty, took a few penalties when we had possession of the puck, and we turned it over,” Hurricanes coach Bill Peters said. “We turned it over too much and made it real hard on ourselves, and therefore, gave up 50-plus shots.”
The Oilers goals came from Mark Letestu, Ryan Strome and Milan Lucic.
Terevainen scored both of his goals in the fist period when the Canes built a 3-0 lead.
“Coming out with 3-0 after the first is always nice,” Staal said. “We made it interesting again, but we’ll continue to learn from those ones. They’re a very dangerous team so they can make a push back and they did a good job of trying to climb back into it, but I thought [Ward] ended up finishing them off at the end.”
The Oilers’ defense has been wanting this season and the early deficit was once more too big a hill to climb.
“It’s tough to win games when you give up two or three goals and then you start playing,” the Oilers’ Oscar Klefbom said. “It’s really bad right now. When Brossoit comes in we have to help him out better and play a solid game. It was not a good game. Everybody in this room knows we have better.”
[WATCH:Â All Hurricanes vs. Oilers highlights]
“Ugly power plays now are scoring and that’s how we got our power-play goals. The killer is the shorthanded one. We throw a grenade to a [defenseman’s] feet and he doesn’t keep the puck in front of him and they’re gone the other way just when we’re establishing some momentum in the game,” Oilers head coach Todd McLellan said after another loss.
In a telling move, Laurent Brossoit got the start over Cam Talbot and made 16 saves in the loss.
“It’s backbreaking when you have an opportunity to get to within a goal on the power play and the next thing you know you are down another,” Lucic said. “Our power play has to be better. Special teams is a lot of times what games come down to and we gave up two while we were shorthanded and one when they were.”
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