4:30 PM
The Carolina Hurricanes, one of the top teams in the Eastern Conference all season, have bigger plans for the future, like possibly competing for the franchise's second Stanley Cup championship.
They will settle for any type of momentum builder they can get, and they began the year with a bang.
The Carolina Hurricanes scored seven unanswered goals, including two by Steven Lorentz, to beat the Columbus Blue Jackets 7-4 on Saturday.
In the third period, the Hurricanes scored four times to overcome a 4-2 deficit. They had five goals.
"It was a weird game, we were down, and I still felt we outplayed them," he said. The goals would come and we knew to keep playing the way we were. They definitely did.
The Carolina Hurricanes shut down the Blue Jackets for the final 31 minutes of the game as they mounted the comeback.
We tried to stop their movement. It was all about the game. They didn't ramp it up there. Columbus built a lead, but that's a big, strong team that they just get the puck sometimes and they have it all night, according to coach Brad Larsen. "That's a good hockey team and they kept coming."
Antti Raanta allowed three goals on nine shots and was replaced by Frederik Anderson. Andersen stopped eight of nine shots in the victory, as the beneficiary of an improved defense in the back half.
The home team had a poor performance and Gustav Nyquist had a goal and two points. The Blue Jackets scored four times before the Hurricanes came back.
I think we can learn from them. The Hurricanes kept playing their game no matter what the score was. "Just play the game the way we know how to play"
The Hurricanes ended the game that way, even though it took Carolina a bit to get there.
"It's the type of players that we have," Carolina coach Rod Brind'Amour said. Young guys are very competitive. If you can skate, then you're going to do well in our system.
A goalie change was also made in the game. Tarasov allowed two goals on 33 shots. Elvis Merzlikins had 15 shots and allowed four goals.
Hockey is weird. It was not about lack of effort today. Werenski said that they were not tired, at least that's what he thought. I thought we worked hard in the first two periods and had a lead. At some point in the game, we have to take some pressure off our goalies. The whole game was played in our end. At some point, we needed to be smarter.
The win moved Carolina into a tie with the Washington Capitals for first place in the Metropolitan Division. The Hurricanes are in a three-way tie for the league lead with Washington and the Lightning.
I think we've played well. "If you look at the season, I think there are two games that I wasn't very happy with, so that's pretty good." It's been a good effort so far. Can we improve? Of course.
The Blue Jackets agreed in a small sample size on New Year's Day.
It looks bad because we had the lead. Let's face it. They were the better team.
The Associated Press contributed to the report.
