After a big win in the season opener at PNC Arena, Carolina Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour did not make any lineup changes for the second game Saturday.
“There’s not much to change,” Brind’Amour said Saturday morning. “I thought it was pretty good all the way around. Everyone played pretty well.”
There was one big difference: the Canes’ second game was on the road, against the Nashville Predators. It was at Bridgestone Arena, before a Preds’ sellout crowd.
The Canes, with goalie Frederik Andersen making 38 saves, took a 3-2 victory in a game that had the physicality, puck battles and gritty intensity of the Stanley Cup matchups the two teams played last season.
Andrei Svechnikov scored his third of the season with six minutes left in regulation and Teuvo Teravainen’s empty-net goal with 1:12 remaining in regulation proved to be the winner. Jesper Fast scored for the Canes in the first, his second of the season.
Andersen was the Canes’ best player Saturday. Given a second start, he was focused and sharper than in the opener, when he was fighting the puck at times.
The Preds’ Filip Forsberg scored with 45 seconds left in regulation as Nashville pulled goalie Juuse Saros for an extra attacker. But the Canes held on as the Preds attacked to the final buzzer.
Saros, after the Fast goal, was effective as the Predators tied the score in the second and began the third period with a power play as Canes defenseman Brady Skjei was called for tripping with a second remaining in the period.
The Canes killed off the Skjei penalty and another on Vincent Trocheck in the third to keep it a 1-1 game. Andersen stood tall in net, making some terrific stops on the penalty kills.
Svechnikov’s goal came after defenseman Brett Pesce flipped the puck out of the Canes zone to the neutral zone. Martin Necas, on the right wing, set up Svechnikov. Pesce also assisted on the Teravainen goal.
The Canes, coming off the 6-3 win over the New York Islanders in the opener, had a chance to take control in the first. Fast scored with a heavy shot from the left circle for a 1-0 lead and the Canes, pressuring the Preds, then had 1:37 of a 5-on-3 power play.
But poor puck movement and too few shots during the two-man advantage became a big miss for Carolina. The Preds were the team aggressively forechecking in the second period afetr the Canes’ had a solid edge in puck possession in the first.
Svechnikov, the star of opening night, made a weak pass in the neurtal zone that became a turnover and soon a goal against. The Preds’ Ryan Johansen carried the puck in on Andersen to tie it with his first goal of the season.
Coaches learn a lot about their teams in the first game. They can learn even more in the first road games, of how players respond to pressure situations and momentum swings that canbe fueled by the energy and noise in the other team’s building.
Playing the Predators didn’t have the same freshness that the opener against Islanders, once again a Metropolitan Division opponent. The Canes and Preds faced off eight times in the 2021 regular season in the Central Division, then again in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs as Carolina advanced in six games.
Add in two preseason exhibition games, the second last Saturday at Bridgestone Arena, and the two teams have seen more than enough of each other in 2021. There is animosity.
The Predators, who play their first four games at home, were beaten Thursday by the Seattle Kraken in their season opener -- for Seattle, a historic first NHL win for the expansion Kraken.
