Jesperi Kotkaniemi scored the tiebreaking goal early in the third period Saturday afternoon for the Carolina Hurricanes, who went on to beat the host New Jersey Devils 4-2 in a battle of retooled Metropolitan Division rivals.
Kotkaniemi scored on an angled shot after a lengthy battle for the puck deep in the Devils’ zone between New Jersey’s Luke Hughes and Carolina’s Jesper Fast.
After the puck squirted loose, Kotkaniemi fired a shot that bounced off the far post and skittered along the goal line before bouncing off the back of goalie Nico Daws and into the net at the 2:50 mark.
Martin Necas scored a power-play goal in the first and Andrei Svechnikov’s empty-netter with 1:11 left proved to be the game-winning goal for the Hurricanes, who added another insurance goal on Teuvo Teravainen’s empty-netter with 7.3 seconds remaining.
Goalie Pyotr Kochetkov made 23 saves for the Hurricanes, who won for the fourth time in five games (4-1-0) to stay four points behind the first-place New York Rangers, who beat the St. Louis Blues 4-0 on Saturday.
Carolina played without Jake Guentzel two days after he was acquired from the Pittsburgh Penguins. Evgeny Kuznetsov, whom the Hurricanes obtained from the Washington Capitals on Friday, was a plus-1 in 13 minutes.
Nico Hischier scored in the second and Timo Meier scored an extra-attacker goal with 11.3 seconds remaining for the Devils, who fell to 1-2-0 since Travis Green replaced Lindy Ruff as head coach.
New Jersey, which entered Saturday six points out of a playoff spot, traded center Tyler Toffoli and acquired goalie Jake Allen in separate deals Friday.
Daws recorded 22 saves.
Necas opened the scoring with 7:32 left in the first, when he took a pass from Teravainen and fired a shot from in front of the blue line past Daws, who was screened by teammates Jesper Bratt and Simon Nemec in the shooting lane.
A Hurricanes turnover led to Hischier’s game-tying goal late in the second.
Svechnikov’s whirling pass was picked off by Jack Hughes, who weaved his way around Brent Burns before dishing to Hischier, whose shot from the slot sailed beyond Kochetkov’s glove and off the far post with 4:33 remaining.
-Field Level Media
