Carolina’s late goal saddles San Jose with 2nd straight loss
RALEIGH, N.C. — Carolina’s Andrei Svechnikov scored on a rebound with 3:44 remaining to lift the Hurricanes to a 2-1 victory over the Sharks on Sunday.
“Lucky bounce for me and I just put it in the net,” Svechnikov said.
Rudolfs Balcers scored early in the third period for the Sharks, who have lost two in a row are in a 1-3-1 stretch that matches the team’s worst fivegame span of the season. James Reimer made 27 saves for San Jose.
“We defended really well,” Reimer said. “They just got a bounce at the end of the game. They just got the last bounce.”
The winning goal had a familiar tone for Reimer, who spent the 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons with the Hurricanes.
“It’s just exactly the way they draw it up,” he said.
Vincent Trocheck posted his 11th goal of the season just 4:36 into the game. The Hurricanes turned San Jose’s neutral-zone turnover into an early lead, with Trocheck firing a shot from inside the blue line.
The Sharks pulled even 3:36 into the third period when Balcers converted. He has scored in three of the past four games in which he has played.
San Jose will play in its final game prior to the All-Star break Tuesday at Tampa Bay — the Sharks’ third game in a row against the three Eastern Conference teams with the most points.
“We played pretty well,” Sharks center Andrew Cogliano said. “It hurts. You play as good as you can and you get no points out of the game.”
Reimer is San Jose’s top goalie, but coupled with Saturday’s 5-4 loss at Florida, this marked the first time he has played on back-to-back days this season.
“That’s why you train all summer, so you can be ready for this,” he said.
Sunday was Carolina’s first game after the midway mark of its schedule. The Hurricanes set a franchise record with 62 points in the first 41 games entering Sunday.
“We’ve just got to keep doing that and always getting better every day,” Svechnikov said.
Reimer played for Carolina for two seasons, with 22 appearances last season and 25 appearances in 2019-20. Sunday was his 25th game of the season with the Sharks.
In December, another of Carolina’s goalies from last season, Alex Nedeljkovic, was back in the building with Detroit. He, too, was pinned with a loss that night.
When Petr Mrazek came to Carolina with the Maple Leafs in October, he didn’t play. Mrazek was the Hurricanes’ top goalie for stretches of the previous two seasons.
Until Svechnikov’s goal, Carolina was in danger of not scoring in the second or third period for the second day in a row. Both goals Saturday in a 2-1 win over New Jersey came in the first period. So, three of the past four goals for the Hurricanes have been recorded in first periods following a two-game stretch with no first-period goals.