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The Carolina Hurricanes hope to build off a comeback win when they visit the Philadelphia Flyers on Tuesday.
The Hurricanes scored three unanswered goals in the third period to skate away with a 3-2 win against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Sunday. The win came after Carolina was blown out 8-2 by the Tampa Bay Lightning on Friday.
“We’ll take a win in any way possible,” defenseman Brady Skjei said. “There’s never a real panic on our bench and I think that’s a huge strength of ours. Even (Sunday), down two, no one didn’t believe that we couldn’t come back and win. Any win, we’ll take right now. That was a good one and hopefully, we can carry it over into Philly.”
Carolina is 9-4-0 since losing four of their first seven games of the season and hasn’t dropped consecutive games since a three-game losing streak from Oct. 19-24. The Hurricanes followed that slide up with three straight wins but haven’t won more than two in a row since.
“The older you get as a group, it becomes a little more challenging,” coach Rod Brind’Amour said last week. “Everybody understands the end of the year is where you want to be. But you’ve got to remember, the hardest part of the year is this part. It’s getting to (the playoffs) and you can’t just fast-forward there, even though you all want to.
“They all know that’s the fun time. But there’s a race that’s going on that you have to win before you get there and that’s the whole key — staying with this race before you worry about that race.”
It’s been a solid start to the season for Jesperi Kotkaniemi. The 23-year-old sits third on the Hurricanes with seven goals and is tied for fourth on the team with 14 points, putting him on pace for career highs (28 goals, 57 points) in both categories.
The surprising Flyers enter Tuesday winners of seven of their past 11, including a 3-1 triumph against Carolina on Nov. 15, part of a five-game winning streak.
Most recently, Philadelphia halted a two-game skid with a 1-0 shootout victory against the New York Islanders on Saturday.
“I think it’s huge for us, just not to lose the momentum we built up here five games before,” said goalie Samuel Ersson, who was in net against the Islanders. “With this win, we get right back into the win column and keep building on what we’ve been doing since the start of this season.”
One area where the Flyers would like to see improvement is on the power play, which ranked 29th in the NHL entering Monday’s schedule. After snapping an 0-for-26 man-advantage drought by scoring three times on eight opportunities over two games, they’ve been held off the scoresheet in each of their past three games.
After an impressive showing with seven points (three goals, four assists) in eight games last season, it’s been a struggle thus far for rookie Tyson Foerster, with just one goal through 20 games. The 21-year-old scored the lone goal in the shootout to secure the win for Philadelphia on Saturday, and while it won’t officially count toward his tally total, it could be just what the doctor ordered.
“He’s been close for quite a while,” Flyers coach John Tortorella said. “I guess it doesn’t count as a goal for him. But it will count for him, because hopefully it just releases him. He’s done everything else except score. Hopefully that’ll help his confidence there.”
–Field Level Media
