The Carolina Hurricanes, after defeating the New York Rangers on Tuesday (Nov. 4), hosted the Minnesota Wild on Thursday night in the first of two meetings this season. The Wild came into town on a two-game winning streak. The Hurricanes looked to snap another winning streak during the first week of November. After the final horn sounded, the Hurricanes held on to win 4-3 over the Wild.
Game Recap
The first period in one word: WILD. The first 20 minutes of the game saw five total goals, three from the Hurricanes and two from the Wild. After Matt Boldy made it 1-0 for the visitors earlier in the period, Jackson Blake, with his one-man effort, scored a highlight reel goal to beat Filip Gustavsson. Not even 31 seconds later, Brock Faber made it a 2-1 Wild lead. To complete the utter chaos, Andrei Svechnikov made it a 2-2 game just 21 seconds later. In a span of a minute, there were three goals, all at 4-on-4.
The reason for the long 4-on-4 was that Tyler Pitlick was kicked out of the game for an illegal check to the head on Jalen Chatfield. Jordan Staal, in his 910th game with the Hurricanes (now the franchise’s all-time leader), received a 10-minute misconduct for the fight, five minutes for fighting, and two minutes for instigating.
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Sean Walker, later in the first period, made it 3-2 Hurricanes. It’s his second straight game with a goal, and back-to-back games with a multipoint night following an assist on the Blake goal. The Hurricanes led in shots 7-3 and were up 3-2 after a chaotic and wild first 20 minutes.
The second period only saw two goals. Boldy scored his second of the game, just 37 seconds into the middle frame. As in the first period, the Hurricanes scored right away, only nine seconds after the Boldy goal, as Nikolaj Ehlers scored his second goal in as many games. Blake had a multipoint night after getting the assist on the goal. That second line of Ehlers, Blake, and Logan Stankoven was sneaky good for the Hurricanes in back-to-back games. After 40 minutes, it was 4-3 Hurricanes, with shots being 23-11 in favor of Carolina.
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The third period saw no goals between the two teams, after two wild periods beforehand. However, the Wild did manage to outshoot the Hurricanes 12-6 in the final frame. In the end, the Hurricanes outshot the Wild 27-22 in the game and held on for the win.
The Hurricanes are on a two-game winning streak after the 4-3 victory and are now 9-4-0 on the season. The Wild saw their winning streak snapped at two. That’s two winning streaks that the Hurricanes have snapped this week, with the first coming on Tuesday against the Rangers. Walker is on a heater with back-to-back multipoint nights, tallying two goals and two assists in each game. He was deserving of the first star.
