In ANaheim, the Ducks’ Frank Vatrano hit for a hat trick on Sunday to help Anaheim to a 6-3 win over the Carolina Hurricanes. It was their first win of the season, and first for new head coach, Greg Cronin .
“It’s great to get a hat trick, but it doesn’t mean anything if you don’t win the game,” Vatrano said.
Lukas Dostal made 32 saves in the Ducks win.
In just under two minutes in the first period, Sam Carrick put the Ducks up at 6″52, and Vatrano scored at 8:31 for a 2-0 advantage to Anaheim.
“Whenever you let them in easy, just bad stuff happens from then on in,” he said. “What makes us successful is hounding pucks, going in and getting on the forecheck and then helping our [defense] by coming back. It’s not a hard recipe. It’s pretty simple, and when we’re simple, we’re obviously a better team.”
Pavel Mintyukov ballooned the lead to 3-0 at 12:06 of the first.
“We got in late last night and I was a little worried about the energy level,” Cronin said. “I thought the crowd played a big role in getting us on our toes early.”
Teuvo Teravainen scored a pair of goals for the Canes in the loss.
“We just dug ourselves too much of a hole,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “I credit the guys for at least realizing it wasn’t going well, and they figured a way to try and get back into it.”
Teravainen scored at 13:52 of the second to shave the deficit to 3-1.
Vatrano’s second came at 16:44 to push the lead back to three at 4-1.
“We knew they were going to come in the third,” Cronin said. “To me, the big positive in that is we kept them to the outside and we had a lot of blocked shots and we won the game, so that’s going to be a lot of third periods. Obviously, it’s a style in the NHL, people throw everything at you, and I thought we did a good job weathering the storm.”
Teravainen hit for his double early in the third to cut into the lead at 4-2, and Martin Necas scored at 15:29 to make it a one-goal game at 4-3.
Cam Fowler and Vatrano hit empty-net goals in the final two minutes for the 6-3 final.
Antti Raanta made 19 saves in the loss.
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