Hurricanes blow away Canucks early
CAROLINA 4 VANCOUVER 1
RALEIGH, North Carolina — The Carolina Hurricanes got a big lift from a pair of unlikely scorers.
Brett Pesce, Phil Di Giuseppe and Sebastian Aho scored in the first period, leading the Hurricanes to a 4-1 win over the Vancouver Canucks on Friday night.
While Aho leads the team with 20 goals, Pesce scored his second of the season 14 seconds into the game. Di Giuseppe picked up his first goal in over a year.
“I think everyone found a way to contribute,” Hurricanes coach Bill Peters said. “All in all, it was a good night.”
Justin Williams added his 10th in the third as Carolina stopped a three-game slide. Scott Darling, who had lost his last three starts, made 22 saves.
“They were throwing a lot of pucks from the side and getting bounces off them,” Darling said. “There were a couple of awkward ones, but none of those got by me. It was just good to get the win.”
Michael Del Zotto scored for Vancouver, which beat Carolina 3-0 in their first meeting of the season on Dec. 5. Jacob Markstrom stopped 29 shots.
“It’s not Markstrom’s fault tonight,” Vancouver coach Travis Green said. “We weren’t good enough to win this hockey game, that’s for sure.”
Pesce got Carolina off to a fast start when he beat Markstrom over his left shoulder. Jordan Staal and Aho each got an assist on the play.
“I definitely didn’t expect that,” Pesce said of his team’s early offence. “But we stressed that since they were coming off a back-to-back.”
Di Giuseppe made it 2-0 at 14:43, knocking the puck into the goal off Markstrom’s right blocker for his first goal of the season.
Aho then scored with 56 seconds left in the first, easily beating Markstrom on a stretch pass from Jaccob Slavin.
Del Zotto got Vancouver on the board at 3:30 of the second, scoring from the top of the left circle. But Williams beat Markstrom from the right point at 7:27 of the third.
“There was a little bit of desperation for sure,” Pesce said. “We’ve had some trouble scoring these past few games. But you have to score to win, and we know where the standings are. Every win is sort of a must.”
RW Brock Boeser (wrist) and Christopher Tanev (lower body) were scratches for the Canucks, who will visit Dallas on Sunday in the finale of their four-game road trip.
Blues 5 Jets 2
WINNIPEG — Vladimir Tarasenko struck twice as the St. Louis Blues used a trio of goals in the second period to help propel them to a 5-2 victory over the Winnipeg Jets.
Tarasenko, Patrik Berglund and Alexander Steen scored in a span of seven minutes and 21 seconds in the second period to make it 3-0. Tarasenko added his 23nd goal of the season in the third after Winnipeg had closed the gap to 3-2. Brayden Schwartz scored into an empty net and also had an assist.
Kyle Connor and Patrik Laine scored for the Jets (32-14-9), who saw an eight-game point streak (6-0-2) halted. The loss also ended Winnipeg’s 10-game point streak (9-0-1) at home.
Jake Allen made 20 stops for St. Louis (34-20-3), which had defeated Colorado 6-1 Thursday. The Blues’ record when leading after two periods this season climbed to 26-0-1.