Arguably the NHL's worst team, the Carolina Hurricanes, posted two wins in a row for the first time this season with their most recent victory yesterday's nail-biter over none other than the reigning Stanley Cup champions and most likely current best team in the league, the Los Angeles Kings.
Coupled with a 3-0 win over the hapless Arizona Coyotes on Saturday, Carolina's first victory of the season, the Canes are now 2-0-0 in November after a 0-6-2 October. The last time the team won back to back games? The final two contests of the 2013-14 season.
Carolina's Victor Rask, appearing in just his 10th NHL game, opened the scoring midway through the initial stanza with his first career NHL goal, according to NBC Sports. Rask was originally Carolina's second-round pick in 2011.
Zach Boychuck carried the puck down the right wing and shot a pass across the ice to forward Chris Terry, who centered it to Rask for an uncontested tap-in at the top of the crease.
"It's a nice feeling, one of the best feelings in the world I guess," Rask said of his first goal, per NHL.com. "It's nice to get on the board early and get a 1-0 lead."
Early in the second, Terry gave the Canes a 2-0 lead with a power play goal. The 25-year-old Terry, who has spent most of his career to this point toiling away in the AHL, putting up 60-point seasons year in and year out with little to no fanfare, had two points in the game.
He has four goals and three assists through 10 games after a rash of Hurricanes injuries afforded him an early-season stint with the big club.
"Coming into training camp, I had one purpose: I wanted to be a full-time NHL player," said Terry. "It's a process. We're 10 games in. I'm not going to say it's a lock right now. I just have to keep getting better every day, just as the team is getting better every day."
LA cut the lead to one later in the second with a nice tic-tac-toe passing play to set up a one-timer from the slot for Mike Richards during a power-play.
Elias Lindholm put the Canes back up two with a shot from the right circle that deflected off Kings defenseman Robyn Regehr and found the back of the net.
The Kings cut the lead to one again late in the third, but Cam Ward stood tall in the final minutes and stonewalled LA the rest of the way.
The game saw Kings star Anze Kopitar and linemate Marian Gaborik return to the lineup after missing three and eight games, respectively. It wasn't enough to help the team to victory.
"We did a lot of good things," Kings coach Darryl Sutter said. "We've had trouble scoring, so just about every mistake you make is magnified. We weren't chasing the game. I thought we played a really good game."
The Canes are inching closer to finally icing the product that coach Bill Peters envisioned at the beginning of the season.
"Really close," Peters said. "We think there's a couple things we can do to get really deep, and when we get to that, we're going to have a really fun team to watch and a team that plays with a lot of tempo. I'm looking forward to getting to that day, hopefully soon."
For the Kings meanwhile, the loss to Carolina continued a troubling trend away from the comfy confines of the Staples Center - the team is now 0-4-2 on the road this season.
