In Raleigh Martin Necas scored with less than a minute left in extra time on Tuesday to give the Hurricanes a 3-2 win over the Ottawa Senators.
The extra session came after the Senators rallied with two goals to tie the game at 2-2.
“Once [Seth Jarvis] entered the zone and went one against two, I knew he was going to kind of wait for me, delay the play,” Necas said. “He made a great drop pass and I just had to hit the net.”
Claude Giroux scored in the second period to get the Sens within one, 2-1, and Brady Tkachuk scored early in the third for the tying marker.
Antti Raanta made 26 saves in the Carolina win.
“It’s a good thing to get a win and help the team get two points,” Raanta said. “That’s obviously the main goal for the rest of the way.”
The Hurricanes improved to 50-18-9.
“[Ottawa is] really good in close, in front of the net,” Raanta said. “They’re making those crucial passes when you already think they’re going to shoot, [got] a couple goals from those. But at least we managed to get the third one and get the two points.”
Ottawa is six points back of the Florida Panthers and New York Islanders for the wild card race.
“I thought we stayed with it. We checked right with these guys,” Senators coach D.J. Smith said. “You don’t like the result in overtime, but to a man, those [defenseman] back there, especially those young kids, did a really nice job.”
Brady Skjei and Jesperi Kotkaniemi scored in the first period for the Canes to give them the 2-0 lead.
“I think I got pretty lucky on that one, I was shooting for the left side,” Skjei said. “I feel like I have a pretty good shot, a pretty hard shot, but I think my accuracy this year has been up.”
The Senators dropped to 37-34-7 off their third straight loss.
Leevi Merilainen made 34 saves in the Sabres; it was his NHL debut.
“You can never be disappointed when everybody leaves it all out there on the ice,” Tkachuk said. “[Merilainen] deserved a better outcome as well. That’s a [heck] of a start to a career right there. We just wanted to get the win for him.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.