On Friday night, the St Louis Blues’ Carter Hutton made 26 saves in a tight 2-1 win over the Carolina Hurricanes in Raleigh.
“What’s nice is you have confidence in [Hutton],” Blues head coach Mike Yeo said . “Typically you have to give your starter rest and nights off, but those are important points. Those are wins you need to get. We have confidence that he’s the guy who can do that for us.”
Brayden Schenn picked up game-winner in the third period.
“I just happened to put my stick on the ice and it bounced to it. So I will take those,” Schenn said. “It was a patient game by us tonight. They didn’t give us a whole lot.”
Dmitrij Jaskinscored the first goal of the game to give the Blues an early 1-0 lead.
“I thought we did a really good job through the neutral zone, but when you play a team like that, they’ve got a lot of speed. They come at you and it doesn’t necessarily give you the feeling you’re in control of things. I thought our guys managed the puck well and put it in places where they were going to have to come through us, and we checked hard,” Yeo said.
Jeff Skinner had the lone strike for the Canes in the loss.
With the scored tied 1-1 in the third, the only penalty of the game came against the Blues who denied the Canes a shot on goal for the two minutes.
“That’s the turning point in the game right there,” Hutton said. “We take a penalty, and I don’t know if they even got possession in the (offensive) zone. From there, we locked it down. Obviously, a huge goal there after the penalty kill.”
[WATCH: All Blues vs. Hurricanes highlights]
Cam Ward made 32 saves in taking the loss.
“What we’re doing now, and what we can’t do, is have this develop into a pattern of not getting points when we’re tied after two. We need to rectify that because you need to bank at least one point. If it takes 25 minutes or a shootout (to win), so be it,” the Canes’ Justin Williams said after the loss.
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