In Raleigh, the Carolina Hurricanes got a big effort from Petr Mrazek who made 35 saves as the Canes beat the New Jersey Devils, 5-2, on Friday night.
“It was a better game for us, not great,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “I thought we came up big at the right times.”
Mirco Mueller and Joey Anderson were the Devils strikers.
“I thought the compete and effort was actually better throughout the game tonight than it was in the Detroit game,” the Devils’ Blake Coleman said. “We just weren’t sharp, really, throughout the whole game. Just slapping the puck around a bit. Sometimes you’ve just got to calm down and play the game.”
Martin Necas and Nino Niederreiter struck for goals and had two points each for the Canes.
“The biggest thing for us was playing simple hockey,” Niederreiter said. “We got pucks in deep when we had to, and we made plays when they were there. In the last period, [Mrazek] made some ginormous saves for us.”
Warren Foegele, Andrei Svechnikov and Joel Edmundson also scored for Carolina.
“(Confidence) is huge for individuals and actually for our team, too,” Brind’Amour said. “We’ve got to get that swagger back a little bit, and it starts with getting back to the basics and trusting in your game. To me, it’s just playing the right way and the goals will come. We saw that tonight.”
[WATCH:All Devils vs. Hurricanes highlights]
Louis Domingue made 26 saves in the loss.
“I just don’t think we competed long enough and hard enough to give ourselves a chance to win,” New Jersey’s Kyle Palmieri said. “We started going off on our own page and that’s what caused the disconnection. It wasn’t a great last 40 (minutes).”
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