A three-goal third period was just not enough for the Carolina Hurricanes on Tuesday night.
Trailing 0-4 to the Senators in Ottawa, the Canes came up a goal short in a 4-3 loss.
Brady Tkachuk hit for a pair of goals in the win.
“I thought our group did a good job in the first two periods, and in the third period they came back with a huge push there,” Tkachuk said. “A couple of mistakes that we made that we’ll clean up, but we’re still happy with the outcome and those are two huge points against a Stanley Cup contender.”
Anton Forsberg made 42 saves in the Ottawa win.
“[Our goalies] have been our best players throughout this stretch of hockey and they keep us in games every night,” Tkachuk said. “They make those timely saves and, like I said, they’ve been our best players.”
The Hurricanes dropped to 31-10-3.
The Senators improved to 16-22-4.
“We didn’t get too many breaks today,” Canes head coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “Our power play was actually really good. We must’ve had five or six what I thought were tap-ins, and they just didn’t happen to go (in). We’ll move on.”
Andrei Svechnikov, Brendon Smith, and Vincent Trocheck scored in the late rally for Carolina.
“If we want to be the best team in the world, right from the puck drop you’ve got to have it and you’ve got to play the whole 60 (minutes),” Smith said. “You can’t spot them four (goals) and expect to win the game. But we talked about it after the second; come in here and do the right things, have good habits and get ourselves prepared for the next game and not let bad habits creep in.
“I know it’s a cliche, everyone talks about playing 60 (minutes), but that’s literally what you have to do to be the best team in the world.”
Chris Tierney and Alex Formenton scored single markers for the Sens.
“It almost looked like we didn’t expect to be up 4-0 and we didn’t know what to do with it,” Ottawa coach D.J. Smith said. “We were kind of waiting for their push. We’ve got to learn to just keep doing what we’re doing, don’t play the score. And then I thought we had a couple of really good pushes in the third period, and then they scored and froze us and they got the goalie out, but we found a way.”
Antti Raanta made 27 saves in the Canes loss.
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