In Raleigh, Andrei Svechnikov hit for a double on Friday night and helped the Carolina Hurricanes hold off a late surge by the Nashville Predators, for a 5-3 win.
“It was a close game,” Carolina head coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “Both teams played really hard, especially early. ‘Freddie’ made some real big saves in there at crucial times.”
Frederik Andersen made 28 saves in the Carolina win.
The Hurricanes moved to 33-11-4.
Brady Skjei and Jaccob Slavin added goals for the Canes.
“I just made a read and found some open ice,” Skjei said. “I took it to the backhand, which I think was the right play, and then put it in.”
Skjei and Jesperi Kotkaniemi staked the Canes to a 2-0 lead.
“Because he can skate so well, he has the ability to get up in the rush,” Brind’Amour said of Skjei. “It’s skating that got him that goal. He got down the wall and made a nice little move. He’s been good all year. It’s nice for us to see him score but it’s not surprising.”
Nashville’s Luke Kunin cut the lead to 2-1.
“There’s times and places to be able to make plays,” Nashville head coach John Hynes said, “but when you don’t have speed and you don’t have support and you don’t have numbers on the puck, and you’re getting checked the way that we were getting checked, we weren’t able to get to the game that we wanted to regularly. So those are some areas we’ll address.”
With Nashville down, 1-4, in the third, Hynes pulled his goalie for the extra attacker, and the Predators responded with goals from Filip Forsberg and Tanner Jeannot.
“We were down three there and if we can get one, we can get right back into it,” Forsberg said. “We were able to do that. I thought we did a good job [getting] guys to the net. … That’s something we can take with us.”
Jusse Saros made 25 saves in the Preds loss.
“In the second period, we didn’t play the game that gives you the best chance to win regularly,” Hynes said. “We were trying to make plays when plays weren’t there. They had a lot of juice and they wound up scoring late in that period, but they also had lots of other opportunities.”
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