In Raleigh, the Carolina Hurricanes’ Warren Foegele collected three points on two goals and an assist in a 6-4 win for the Canes over the visiting Washington Capitals on Saturday.
The win snapped a three-game skid for the Hurricanes and came a night after losing to the New York Rangers on the road.
“We’d lost three in a row,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “We needed a win desperately, and Washington’s got a huge cushion (for first place in the Metropolitan Division), so we needed to be the desperate team and be the team that needed to win.”
Petr Mrazek picked up the win on 25 saves.
Lucas Wallmark and Foegele set the tone for the Canes when they staked Carolina to a 2-0 lead. The Caps were never able to get back on their toes.
“I thought we really had some good chances to start the game and were getting some opportunities and didn’t convert,” Capitals coach Todd Reirden said. “Then we take two penalties, they go 5-on-3 and score [eight seconds after the first penalty ended].”
Nic Dowd, Alex Ovechkin, Evgeny Kuznetsov, and Radko Gudas scored for the Caps.
“They had some responses right away after our goals, and unfortunately we couldn’t keep them out,” Gudas said. “I thought we kept coming back. We had some great looks, hit a couple posts.”
Dougie Hamilton, Martin Necas and Dougie Hamilton added single markers for Carolina.
“We’re just battling adversity,” Foegele said. “I think lately if something doesn’t go our way, we’re not responding the right way. Tonight, it was good to see us keep the foot forward and go from there.”
Andrei Svechnikov finished the night’s scoring with an empty-net goal.
“We knew we had to play a simple game,” Hamilton said. “We know how good they are. Get the pucks in deep. Forechecked hard and tried to get on them, and when we play that way, we’re a good team.”
[WATCH: All Capitals vs. Hurricanes highlights]
Braden Holtby made 23 saves in the loss.
“We started making some pushes and couldn’t string together a bunch of shifts in a row that we could really turn the corner on the game, and they were able to capitalize on their chances,” Reirden said.
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