Sebastian Aho and Teuvo Teravainen each notched a goal and an assist, leading the Carolina Hurricanes to a 3-2 victory over the New Jersey Devils on Thursday night.
New Jersey coach Lindy Ruff was hit in the face by a puck with about 6 1/2 minutes remaining in the second period. While he initially stayed behind the bench, he did not return for the third period. Associate coach Travis Green took over coaching duties for the rest of the game.
“Just wasn’t feeling right, but seems a little better now than after the second period, so that was great to see,” Green commented.
With 858 career regular-season wins, Ruff ranks fourth all-time among NHL coaches. He has also coached the fourth-most regular-season games in Devils history (266).
“You never like to see what happened out there,” Green added. “Obviously, it happens once in a while.”
Jordan Staal also scored for the Hurricanes, who have won three of their last four games. Antti Raanta made 23 saves.
In the third period, Justin Dowling and Jesper Bratt scored New Jersey’s goals. Dowling was making his Devils debut and playing his first NHL game this season.
Devils goalie Nico Daws was pulled after Carolina’s third goal early in the second period. He stopped nine of 12 shots before Vitek Vanecek made 11 saves in relief.
“I didn’t think we were great, but we got up,” said Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour. “I made a couple of nice plays and kind of just hung around, and that was good enough.”
The Hurricanes won a night earlier in Boston and have been 10- 2- 1 since Christmas.
Fans chanted Raanta’s name as the game ended.
“You know you did something right in the game to get that kind of ovation,” Raanta said. “You battle through the game and then hope to hear good words afterward from the fans.”
This was the first meeting between the teams since Carolina won their second-round playoff series in five games last spring.
Aho opened the scoring with his team-leading 17th goal 90 seconds into the game, skating in from the blue line and beating Daws with a shot.
Carolina’s second goal came 2:54 into the second period, with Teravainen scoring off the initial faceoff of the Hurricanes’ first power play. Staal added his first goal in 14 games 25 seconds later with a tip-in.
“It’s nice, obviously, to get on the scoreboard and contribute that way,” Staal said.
Dowling immediately impacted the Devils, applying pressure near the net in the first period and scoring 5:25 into the third.
“The hard work you put into it, it’s nice to get rewarded every once in a while,” he said.
Bratt’s 18th goal came with 2.3 seconds left when New Jersey used an extra attacker.
In the second period, it took nearly 12 minutes for the Devils to record a shot on goal. The Hurricanes had four shots in the third period.
UP NEXT
- Devils: Visit Tampa Bay on Saturday.
- Hurricanes: Host Arizona on Saturday.
