When the pregame hype reel was released on social media for Sunday’s game against Ottawa, the sight of Nicolas Deslauriers walking in and his jersey being hung ended up being a signal that Carolina was prepared to have at least one player sit out. It turns out two players didn’t make the trip to Ottawa—Jordan Staal and Jordan Martinook—and the effort on the ice showed that the Canes had moved into preservation mode as Ottawa ran away with the game 5-2.
The loss means that Carolina failed to clinch
the Metropolitan Division as Pittsburgh won in regulation for the second day in a row against a Florida team that has given up on the season.
Ottawa meanwhile was looking to at least salvage some points to stem the bleeding from dropping four of their last five and take advantage of other results during the day to stay in the Wild Card 2 spot and inch closer to Boston in the first spot.
The game started well for the Hurricanes, as Carolina reacted to losing their Power Play Goal games streak on Saturday by starting a new one. The Canes earned the penalty when Seth Jarvis went down the ice on a breakway and was held by Jordan Spence to the point where he ended up in the goalie net, hitting the cross bar. Jarvis was OK, and on the ensuring power play a red hot Nikolaj Ehlers was able to get close to the net, thread a great pass over to Logan Stankoven who potted it to put the Hurricanes up 1-0.
Once that power play was finished, though, the Senators basically took control of the game. There wasn’t a period where the Senators were outshot by the Canes, and less than two minutes after Stankoven gave Carolina the lead Ottawa tied it back up on a Power Play goal of their own by Dylan Cozens. Less than a minute later, Tim Stützle took advantage of a misplay on the puck, skated in on goalie Frederik Andersen, and made a great move at the crease to push the puck by the goalie to give the Senators a 2-1 lead.
Carolina still had some fight, though, as the first period wound down. Carolina was able to keep possession of the puck in the Ottawa zone in the last few seconds, and when a shot went toward Linus Ullmark he was unable to fully cover it in sight of the referee and Andrei Svechnikov kept batting at the puck to get it into the goal and knot the score right at the end of the period.
The good vibes for the Canes were over after that, though, as Ottawa took control of the game. Brady Tkachuk provided the dagger 8:33 into the period with a tip in from a point shot by Artem Zub. While Carolina didn’t surrender another goal in the second, the mood and play on the ice indicated that the Canes went into self-preservation mode.
The third period put the final nail in the game when Carolina was unable to take advantage of another power play, and Shane Pinto would score a few minutes later to put the game out of reach for Ottawa at 4-2. The rest of the goals were window dressing as Tkachuk made it 5-2, and then Taylor Hall finally got his 300th career goal late in the period to bring Carolina back to within two. The goal came with some netfront presence by the veteran, and it did give Carolina a shred of hope with a little over two minutes left.
The Hurricanes would pull Andersen and try to stage a rally, but Claude Giroux nailed the empty net, and Carolina heads back home with their winning streak snapped at three, 6-3.
Ullmark was able to make 25 saves on 28 shots playing the second night in a row after backstopping the Senators against Minnesota on Saturday. Andersen was a victim of the missing stalwarts of Staal and Martinook, making 25 saves on 30 shots.
Carolina heads back to Raleigh to face off against another desperate playoff team in Boston on Tuesday night for their last regular season home game. They’ll once again have a chance to clinch the division, and this time they’ll so without keeping an eye on Pittsburgh as the Penguins somehow scored three days off and won’t play again until Thursday.
