In Raleigh, the Carolina Hurricanes’ Alex Nedeljkovic made 24 saves to blank the Tampa Bay Lightning, 4-0, on Saturday night.
“You’re just happy for the kid,” Hurricanes head coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “He’s been part of the organization for a long time (selected with No. 37 pick in 2014 NHL Draft) and kind of paid his dues. He looked good tonight and he was ready to go. He needed to make some big saves for us tonight and he did.”
Vincent Trocheck and Sebastian Aho staked the Canes to a 2-0 lead in the middle frame.
“I know [Svechnikov] was going to find me,” Aho said. “I tried to beat [Tampa Bay defenseman Ryan McDonagh], I got a step on him and I got a good bounce, too. It bounced over the goalie’s stick upstairs, so a good goal.”
The Canes improved to 12-3-1.
“If any team in the League plays one way, they pretty much stick to the way they play,” Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said. “We weren’t disciplined enough to keep playing the way we needed to.”
Cedric Paquette stretched the lead to 3-0 with a goal midway through the third period.
“Just playing [Tampa Bay] is enough, but at this level it shouldn’t take much to get you going,” Nedeljkovic said. “You’ve got to be ready to play every night, ready to perform. From start to finish we were playing our game.”
Andrei Svechnikov had an empty-net goal and two points in the win.
The Bolts dropped to 10-4-1.
“I think we kind of forced things in the third,” Tampa Bay’s Alex Killorn said. “We kind of got out of our system a little bit because we were trying to fight back and score that goal. We were getting some chances, it just kind of got away from us there.”
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 24 saves in the loss.
“The first period kind of went both ways, then they get that goal and we just kind of chased the game from there,” the Lightning’s Steven Stamkos said. “That’s a really good hockey team over there. They’ve had our number this year.”
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