Hurricanes overpower Canucks
RALEIGH, North Carolina — Sebastian Aho has earned a point in every game this season. So have the Carolina Hurricanes.
It adds up to the best start since the team left Hartford.
Aho had a goal and an assist, and the Hurricanes beat the Vancouver Canucks 5-3 on Tuesday night for their third straight win.
Warren Foegele scored an important insurance goal in the third period, Andrei Svechnikov, Jordan Staal and Brett Pesce also scored and Teuvo Teravainen had two assists.
“I think we’ve had a good start as a line,” Aho said.
And as a team, too. They helped the Eastern Conference-leading Hurricanes improve to 3-0-1 — their most productive start since the move from Hartford in 1997 — under new coach and former team captain Rod Brind’Amour. They earned points in their first four games for the first time since 1994-95, when they were still the Whalers and opened 4-0-1.
“It’s fun, right?” Foegele said. “High-scoring games, a bunch of young guys in here keeping it young, too. The group’s been good, and that’s what you want to see.”
Sven Baertschi had two goals and an assist, and Bo Horvat scored on the power play for rebuilding Vancouver, which has lost the first two games of its sixgame trip.
Curtis McElhinney made 22 saves for the Hurricanes while Jacob Markstrom stopped 28 shots for the Canucks in a game in which the first seven goals were scored in the opening 23 minutes, 24 seconds and the defences tightened up before Foegele scored with 6:12 left to restore Carolina’s two-goal advantage.
“It’s always good to see when you have a lead and you continue to bring it to them,” Staal said. “That’s kind of been the way we wanted to play.”
Vancouver has been outscored 12-7 during its two-game losing streak.
“If you score seven in two games, if you score seven in three games, I would like to get three wins,” Markstrom said. “We’ve got to be better goalies, better [defencemen], better everything, better defence, and we get our goals but right now, today, I was not good. It’s frustrating.”
Aho, who has points in all four games, put Carolina up 3-1 after taking a slick touch pass from Ferland and beating Markstrom from close range with 2:09 left in the first.
“The usual — he creates some space and makes a play, and makes a really nice pass to me,” Aho said of Ferland. “I think I had a pretty easy shot to put the puck in.”
After Horvat pulled the Canucks within a goal in the opening minute of the second period, Svechnikov restored the two-goal lead when he crashed the net and stuffed in a rebound — giving the rookie points in three of his four career games.
Baertschi’s first goal tied it at one at 6:12 after a long pass from Alexander Edler set up a partial breakaway chance. His second came on the power play at 3:24 of the second and pulled the Canucks to 4-3, capping a furious stretch in which the teams combined for three goals in a span of 2:38.
Vancouver rookie centre Elias Pettersson, who assisted on Baertschi’s second goal, has six points in his first three games. Winger Tim Schaller and defenceman Ben Hutton made their season debuts for Vancouver.
Maple Leafs 7, Stars 4
DALLAS — Auston Matthews and John Tavares each had two goals, and the high-scoring Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Dallas Stars 7-4 on Tuesday night.
Toronto defenceman Morgan Rielly had a career-high four assists after he scored the winning goal in Sunday night’s 7-6 overtime win at Chicago. Mitchell Marner had a goal and three assists as the Maple Leafs improved to 2-0 on a four-game trip.
Led by Matthews and Tavares, Toronto has won three of its first four games. Matthews has seven goals and three assists already. Tavares, who signed with his hometown Maple Leafs this summer, has scored five of his six goals in the past two games.
Tyler Seguin had a goal and three assists for Dallas, and Alexander Radulov finished with a goal and two assists.
Ben Bishop made 23 saves for the Stars, while Frederik Andersen had 30 stops for the Maple Leafs.