In Raleigh, the Carolina Hurricanes Andrei Svechnikov hit for a pair of goals in a 6-3 win over the Calgary Flames on Friday night.
The Canes had not played in a week.
“Of course you feel that, and you’re not in game shape,” Svechnikov said. “Obviously, our first period wasn’t our best, but I think we played a great game after the first period.”
The Hurricanes improved to 24-7-1.
Jesper Fast and Brady Skjei also scored for Carolina.
Fasts’s goal tied the game, 1-1, in the opening frame.
“Especially during that time, we needed a goal to get some confidence going back and move our legs a little bit more,” Fast said. “We were standing still a lot, and [there were] a lot of turnovers in the first period.”
Frederik Andersen made 36 saves in the Carolina win.
Blake Coleman, Matthew Tkachuk, and Johnny Gaudreau were the Flames strikers.
“It’s a one-goal game, we had a little momentum,” Gaudreau said. “We were right there, then we let the game get away from us.”
The Flames came out hard in the first period, out shooting the Canes, 21-10.
“It was the best period of the 15 on the trip,” Calgary head coach Darryl Sutter said. “It’s the start we wanted, the emotion we wanted to see and the detail in how we want to play.”
Derek Stepan scored for Carolina to give them a 2-1 lead.
“You’ve got to be in the rhythm, and it took us a while,” Hurricanes head coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “‘Freddie’ kept us in the game in the first period. In the second period, we had our legs and we took it to them the whole period. That was the difference in the game to me.”
Calgary dropped to 17-10-6.
Tony DeAngelo added an empty-net goal for the 5-3.
“I’ve had some pretty good looks coming down the slot and I’ve been able to take advantage of those opportunities,” Skjei said. “Hopefully I can keep finding those spots and putting the puck in the back of the net.”
Dan Vladar made 31 saves in the Flames loss.
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