In Raleigh, a tight, 2-2, affair on Monday ended with a three-goal outburst by the Carolina Hurricanes in the third period in a 5-2 win in Game 1 of their series with the 
Nashville Predators.
Nino Niederreiter, Jordan Staal His second of the game and Andrei Svechnikov scored (empty net) in the third period.
“He *Staal) was great,” Hurricanes head coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “It’s just what he does, plays hard every night, every shift. Whatever the situation, you can count on him. That’s why he’s our leader.”
Alex Nedeljkovic made 22 saves for the win.
“I thought for the most part it was just another game, obviously just a little bit louder,” Nedeljkovic said. “You just try to look at it that way; it’s just another game, and we’ve got three more (wins) to go.”
Filip Forsberg and Erik Haula scored for the Predators.
“We did some good things,” Nashville head coach John Hynes said. “It was a 2-2 tie going into the third period, we didn’t find a way to win it. Now we will go to the evaluation process on the game and on our lineup.”
Teuvo Teravainen also scored for the Canes.
“I pretty much lost the puck a little bit going between those two guys,” Staal said. “When it goes well is usually when you’re not really thinking. I was just kind of finding a way to get to the net. It was a good goal.”
The two teams return to the ice on Wednesday night in Raleigh for Game 2.
“I think we have a recipe for how to play well against them,” Forsberg said. “I think we were showing it at times. I don’t think we played our best game. They deserved to win. They played better than us tonight.”
Juuse Saros made 33 saves in the loss.
“We have a lot of guys who have made cases for themselves to play, and obviously the group tonight didn’t get it done,” Hynes said. “We have some guys who are not in the lineup that we know are ready to play and can really contribute, so that’s all part of the process.”
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