Necas, Canes down Avs, 5-2 Necas natural hat trick leads Canes

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In Raleigh, the Hurricanes took a 3-2 lead on the Colorado Avalanche in the opening stanza on Thursday night and then breezed to a 5-2 win.

Martin Necas  hit for a hat trick in the win.

“I waited long enough and I was hoping to get one soon,” Necas said. “Good start of the game. It’s always nice to get a hatty with a win.”

The Canes moved to 29-16-5.

Pyotr Kochetkov got the start for Carolina, but was pulled in the fist intermission.

He had yielded allowed two goals while making 16 saves.

Antti Raanta made nine saves in the middle frame, but he did not ice the third period with an injury.

Kochetkov returned to the crease in the third period and made 10 saves.

Carolina took a 3-0 lead in the opening stanza.

Necas hit for his first at at 1:52 for a 1-0 lead.

“[Necas] is a talent, we know that,” Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “Sometimes it goes away for a little while, but it’s always there. When you’re that good a player, you can have games like that, where you just explode.”

Carolina pushed the advantage to 2-0 at 6:25 on a delayed penalty when Necas collected his double.

Necas collected his hats on a natural hat trick at 16:51 of the first.

“On the third goal, [Teravainen] just found me there, kind of battling in front,” Necas said. “And a nice pass by ‘Burnsie’ (on the second goal). We’ve got some good players here, so you want to get open and be ready to shoot it.”

The Avs dropped to 32-16-4 off their third straight loss.

“I thought our guys played extremely hard tonight,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. “You kind of take the slow start and them winning the special teams battle [and it] makes a difference in the hockey game.

The Avalanche replied with a pair of goals in a five-second span.

Zach Parise trimmed the deficit to 3-1 at 19:33.

Samuel Girard  scored five seconds later off the face off at center ice to make it 3-2 headed to the middle frame.

In the second period, Michael Bunting added a power play marker at  12:06 for a 4-2 lead to Carolina.

“He’s got some great poise and silky mitts, and he’s able to make those plays,” Bunting said of Teravainen. “That’s my game on the power play, just find that soft spot and try to get open.”

Seth Jarvis hit for an empty-net, power play strike with 54 seconds left on the game clock for the 5-2 final count on the scoreboard.

“Give him a lot of credit because obviously he wasn’t happy with what happened,” Brind’Amour said. “He’s not thinking he’s going to have to get back in there, but he did and he played great. That’s got to be a real confidence boost for him.”

Alexandar Georgiev made 22 saves in the loss.

“We haven’t played a PK like that in a while, in terms of being very aggressive,” Colorado’s Cale Makar said. “We’re going to have to have to learn from it because obviously our execution just wasn’t there on the power play.”