Hurricanes drop 5-3 decision to Coyotes

Peter Koutroumpis, Triangle Sports Network
Peter Koutroumpis, Triangle Sports Network

RALEIGH, N.C – The Carolina Hurricanes suffered a 5-3 loss to the Phoenix Coyotes in front of 15,384 in attendance at PNC Arena on Sunday afternoon.

With forward Tuomo Ruutu being activated from the injured reserve list and returning to the lineup, the Hurricanes had a little more experience and fire power to work with up front, but the overall effort was lacking in trying to beat the Coyotes during the two teams’ first meeting of the season.

Even as the Hurricanes tallied goals from Eric Staal, Riley Nash and Jeff Skinner, it wasn’t enough to knock off their Western Conference opponent.

“Not very happy at all,” Hurricanes coach Kirk Muller said of his team’s effort.

“A few guys came ready to play, battle and play their game, but we had too many passengers tonight. We had some of our top guys that just didn’t bring their A-game today.”

After using a full day to practice and recover from a 2-1 shootout loss to the Los Angeles Kings on Friday, Carolina faced a fast-skating and tight-checking Phoenix squad.

The Coyotes came out firing and put three shots on Hurricanes starting goaltender Anton Khudobin during the first three minutes of play.

The Coyotes took advantage of an early power play opportunity as defenseman Derek Morris wired a point shot that rung of the post, leaving a big rebound for Mikkel Boedker to deposit the puck into the open net past a sliding Khudobin at 4:59 into the period.

Trailing 1-0, it wasn’t until the six-minute mark when the Hurricanes put their first shot on Phoenix goaltender Mike Smith who made 31 saves throughout the game.

Carolina was outshot 8-1 during the first 10 minutes of play as the Coyotes utilized a tight-checking neutral zone trap to slow the Hurricanes breakout.

In a game that included 18 penalty calls, Carolina had more than enough opportunities to beat Smith but could only muster one goal on the power play out of nine chances provided to them.

During the latter part of the opening period, the Hurricanes started to chip away at the Coyotes defense and gained the offensive zone more effectively.

However, they couldn’t penetrate enough to earn shooting opportunities closer than the edges of the circles to challenge Smith more.

“It was a choppy game,” Jordan Staal said.

“Not a lot of flow and a lot of penalties. It was tough to get a few shifts together and some momentum going.”

It wasn’t until the 15:07 mark when Eric Staal evened the score 1-1 with a backhand shot from the middle slot.

Linemate Jiri Tlusty forced a turnover that resulted in the puck flipping out of the corner to Smith’s right and landing near Staal which he then proceeded to draw his backhand before releasing the shot that beat the netminder.

Even as both teams traded penalties and power play opportunities for the remainder of the period, they headed to their dressing rooms still tied 1-1.

Phoenix came out skating and forechecking aggressively during the early part of the next period and hemmed the Hurricanes in the their zone for much of the first seven minutes of play, and peppered Khudobin with seven more shots in the process.

Carolina managed to get a few intermittent opportunities to gain the Phoenix zone, and capitalized on one of them at the 7:11 mark when Riley Nash scored his first goal of the season tipping a Ryan Murphy point shot that beat Smith high and over his glove hand.

However, it didn’t take long for Phoenix to answer back as a scramble in Khudobin’s crease allowed Rob Klinkhammer to jam the puck between the keeper’s legs to even the score 2-2, just 74 seconds later.

Shortly afterwards, the injury bug bit the Hurricanes as Khudobin slipped while attempting to play the puck far from his crease and he left the game with a lower body injury with 10:08 remaining in the period.

He had made 18 saves on 20 Phoenix shots faced before being replaced by Cam Ward who faced 12 more shots for the remainder of the game.

The Coyotes then proceeded to fill the penalty box and provided the Hurricanes a generous set of power play opportunities including a lengthy 5-on-3 chance to take the lead.

However, Smith stood tall while handling a number of shots aimed at his chest and provided few, if any rebounds to come back at him.

After missing out on that prime scoring opportunity, the Hurricanes failed to clear the puck past their blue line at even-strength and Phoenix’s David Moss made them pay for it.

Moss started a play where he picked the puck up along the right boards and advanced the puck to Mike Ribeiro in the faceoff circle who then found a wide open Lauri Korpikoski in front of the net who beat Ward on an uncontested shot to take the lead 3-2.

However, the Coyotes couldn’t resist providing the Hurricanes with another power play opportunity shortly afterwards.

As a result, Jeff Skinner bounced a shot off Smith’s arm and into the net after he received a setup pass from Nathan Gerbe who worked the puck from behind the net on the play.

“Obviously we had more than enough power play chances to get a couple of goals,” Murphy said.

“We got the one, but that’s not enough. You gotta’ build off that. You gotta’ have that killer mentality on the power play to want to put pucks in the net.“

As play continued with the clock counting down, Jordan Staal and Patrick Dwyer caused a turnover that got Staal the puck in the slot.

Staal proceeded to snap a shot past Smith but it caught the corner of the post and crossbar and dropped in front of the goal line, denying him the opportunity to put Carolina ahead with seconds remaining in the period.

Both teams went to their dressing rooms tied 3-3 as the horn sounded.

It took only 22 seconds into the third period for Klinkhammer to score his second goal of the game after outskating Eric Staal along the right neutral zone boards, gathering the puck, and utilizing the two-on-one opportunity to freeze Ward while snapping a shot high and over his glove hand to put Phoenix ahead 4-3.

With 13 minutes remaining to play, Carolina was faced with killing off two penalties, and weren’t able to do so as Shane Doan managed to deke Ward at the edge of the crease and extended the Coyotes lead to two goals, 5-3, with 12:49 to play.

Both teams traded multiple extra-man opportunities for the remainder of game as each was penalized for various infractions, but none that the Hurricanes capitalized on.

“We just didn’t do a lot of things right tonight,” Muller said.

“Whether to put pucks in the right area to go to work, we didn’t have our forecheck game goin’ tonight. We didn’t win enough one-on-one battles. Then we get off our game plan, we wanna’ become individuals and when you do that, you’re not gonna’ have success.”