In San Jose, the Carolina Hurricanes’ Sebastian Aho scored with just under two minutes left in regulation on Friday night to send the Canes to a 2-1 win over the Sharks.
“Just a great play by (Brett) Pesce taking a little second to look,” Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “I thought we had a lot of play in the O-zone. A lot of close calls.”
Antti Raanta made 18 saves in the Carolina win.
“I think we played pretty well today for the whole 60 minutes,” Raanta said. “Special teams, good PK, and then obviously we got the late goal and then defended really well at the end there. So, you take the two points and move forward.”
Evgeny Svechnikov was the lone goal scorer for the Sharks.
Svechniko’s goal gave the Sharks a 1-0 lead in the eighth minute of the first period.
“We did some good things in the first period, but I really thought that we didn’t really do much in the second or third,” San Jose coach David Quinn said. “I thought they won a lot of battles and won the foot races to loose pucks, and we seemed to be chasing the game for the better part of the second and the third period.”
Carolina’s Martin Necas tied the game, 1-1, with 23 seconds left in the middle frame.
“First period we had some tough shifts, but in the second I feel like we were the better team,” Necas said. “It was good that we had a goal at the end of the second.”
San Jose was outshot 17-4 in the middle frame.
“[The second period] really highlighted our turnovers,” Quinn said. “When you turn it over as much as we did in the second period, you can’t get off of the ice because of the long change. If you go back and look at it, the turnovers really gave us a lot of trouble. But give [the Hurricanes] credit.”
James Reimer made 33 saves in the San Jose loss.
“For the most part, I thought we weathered the storm,” Reimer said. “We worked hard, we battled hard. These guys are giving it their all and they’re grinding. They’re digging in. It’s impressive to see our compete level. So when you play hard and honest, good things will happen. Obviously, we don’t want to be down 0-3 to start, and moral victories aren’t something you can hang your hat on, but at least when you put your head on the pillow tonight, I think a lot of these guys have at least peace because they worked their bags off.”
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