COLUMBUS, OHIO – The Carolina Hurricanes ended their recent run of success as they were shut out by the Columbus Blue Jackets 3-0 at Nationwide Arena on Friday.
Playing in the second half of a back-to-back set after beating the Toronto Maple Leafs 6-1 at home the night before, the Hurricanes weren’t able to unload any more firepower up front to beat Blue Jackets goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky, even while outshooting Columbus 36-24.
“It was kind of like a chess match kind of game, nothin’ was goin’ on really with both teams which we were quite happy with,” Hurricanes coach Kirk Muller said.
“Then one or two breakdowns and they capitalized and scored two goals. They’re a good team, they play a good system, they don’t give up much, we don’t give up much either, and we just weren’t able to sustain that second or third opportunity tonight to capitalize.”
It was noticeable that the Blue Jackets had a jump on the Hurricanes during the first 10 minutes of play and took advantage of an aggressive forechecking regimen that put two men deep behind the goal line and forced Carolina to move the puck quickly.
The strategy paid off as Hurricanes center Brett Sutter attempted to skate away from one Columbus forechecker with the puck behind his own net, but he bumped into another and caused the puck to slide freely into the low slot to a waiting Boone Jenner.
Jenner beat Khudobin with his shot and gave the Blue Jackets a 1-0 lead with five minutes remaining in the first period.
Just over a minute later, a line change by both teams opened up an opportunity for Brandon Dubinsky to pick up the puck outside the Carolina blue line and to gain the zone along the boards.
In full stride, Dubinsky wired a shot from the faceoff circle to Khudobin’s right that beat the netminder cleanly over his glove hand and extended the Columbus lead to 2-0 heading into the second period.
For the remaining 40 minutes of play, the Hurricanes found their tempo at both ends of the rink and outshot the Blue Jackets (29-15).
“I thought as the game went on we got better,” Muller said.
“I thought in the second and the third we started to come on, getting more scoring opportunities. I thought we were playing well. We just couldn’t, we just didn’t score.”
Although facing a two-goal deficit, Carolina had shown in recent games that a strong third period effort could put them right back into a game.
However, the Blue Jackets increased the challenge when they extended Carolina’s deficit to three goals after Cam Atkinson’s rising wrist shot on the power play beat Khudobin.
Down by three goals, and even while being afforded a two-man advantage to get on the board, the Hurricanes’ scoring drought extended through to the final horn as they couldn’t find an answer to beating Bobrovsky.
The loss not only ended Carolina’s season-high five-game win streak that began on New Year’s Eve, but handed goaltender Anton Khudobin his first loss of the season after winning a franchise record six consecutive games since the beginning of the season.
“Their goalie played well,” Muller said.
“He made some huge saves. We got scoring chances, we got opportunities. He made the saves when he needed to. We threw enough shots at the net tonight to get some different results, but it didn’t happen tonight. Just get back to the drawing board tomorrow.”