The Carolina Hurricanes were defeated 3-2 by the Dallas Stars on Saturday at American Airlines Center, despite an early two-goal lead. Jackson Blake opened the scoring for Carolina at 4:14 in the first period after capitalizing on a turnover. Sebastian Aho extended the lead just before the end of the opening frame.
Dallas responded quickly in the second period, with their first goal coming from a deflection off a Carolina stick at 1:04. The Stars then tied the game with a power-play goal four minutes later. In the third period, another puck deflected off a Hurricanes defenseman during a Dallas power play, resulting in what would be the game-winning goal.
Goaltender Brandon Bussi made 31 saves on 34 shots, marking his highest save total in an NHL game but also his first loss as an NHL goaltender.
Sebastian Aho’s performance continued his point streak to eight games to start this season, which is only the second time he has achieved such a streak; his previous best was twelve consecutive games at the start of the 2018-19 season. With his latest goal, Aho now has 287 career goals and has surpassed Aleksander Barkov for fifth place among Finnish-born scorers in NHL history. Only Teemu Selanne (684), Jari Kurri (601), Olli Jokinen (321), and Mikko Rantanen (297) have more.
Bradly Nadeau played his first game of this season for Carolina, recording one shot, two blocks, and one hit over 12:39 of ice time. He is now the fifth rookie to appear in a regular-season game for Carolina this year.
After the loss, head coach Rod Brind’Amour said: “It’s tough when you lose a game that was there for us. We probably shouldn’t have won the other night (in Colorado), so I guess, you could say it worked out, but it’s a huge concern with the injuries we have. It’s not sustainable to think that we’re going to go out there and win every night with what we have back there. Those guys dug in and did the best they could.”
Sebastian Aho echoed similar thoughts: “It was right there for us. (It was a) tight game; they got a couple of bounces. Obviously, they earned them. We pushed at the end, but didn’t get the result. It is what it is. It wasn’t that bad of a game; we were right there, and that’s a good team, too. We’ll take the positives and learnings from this, and we’ll move forward.”
Aho commented on how Dallas changed momentum in the second period: “Their (first) goal goes off of our guy, and it’s a nothing play, right? Goals dictate the momentum in this league, and they did a good job using their momentum. It was a tight game from start to finish, and there was not much there.”
Brind’Amour also discussed momentum shifts: “I actually thought we had a good second period. They had their chances, we had ours. We hit a couple of posts in the first. This game could have easily gone either way. We obviously have to score on the power play at some point because it’s putting too much stress on the penalty kill.”
Reflecting on finishing their six-game road trip away from home ice early in this season with extensive travel involved—something all teams experience—Aho said: “It wasn’t the easiest trip. It’s early in the year, with a lot of travel. Every team goes through that, so there’s obviously no excuses at all. We played good teams, and I thought most of it was good hockey. We showed to ourselves the style of play and how we want to play, especially on the road. It’s not always pretty, but I like a lot of what I saw. It leaves kind of a bad taste at the end; you hoped to finish off on the right note.”
The Hurricanes are scheduled to return home immediately following Saturday’s contest for practice before facing Vegas at Lenovo Center on Tuesday.
