The Carolina Hurricanes continued their dominance in the 2021-22 season over the Boston Bruins on Wednesday night. Sebastian Aho and Nino Niederreiter both scored a pair of goals and rookie goalie Pyotr Kochetkov had 30 saves, as Carolina took a 2-0 series lead in Game 2 of an NHL First Round Playoff with a 5-2 victory at PNC Arena in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Carolina had to bring in their third string goalie 12:13 into the game, when second stringer and Game 1 winner Antii Raanta was run into by Boston winger David Pastrnak and left the game with an injury on the play. Raanta stopped 35 of 36 shots in a 5-1 win on Monday night, starting in place of injured Frederik Andersen. The Hurricanes had to turn to the rookie Kochetkov, who had only appeared in three NHL games. That didn’t seem to effect anything, as Jesper Fast scored at 13:03 of the first and Sebastian Aho added another at 15:30 to make it 2-0 Carolina. Aho extended it to 3-0 with a powerplay marker 1:10 into the second period in what turned out to be the game winner. The Bruins would get on the board when Patrice Bergeron scored on the powerplay at 14:57, but the ‘Canes pushed it back to a three goal lead again when Niederreiter tallied on an extra man chance at 18:52. Boston defenseman Hampus Lindholm left the game with an upper body injury and didn’t return after a hard clean check late in the second. Bergeron got his second goal of the night at 12:21 of the third to cut the lead in half, but it wasn’t meant to be and with Bruins goaltender Linus Ullmark pulled late Niederreiter found the empty net at 19:19.
Ullmark finished with 29 saves in the loss. Charlie McAvoy and Brad Marchand each tallied one assist. Boston has lost all five matchups with Carolina this season, and have been outscored 26-4. The Hurricanes five wins in a row over the Bruins is a franchise first. Along with the two goals each for Aho and Niederreiter, Tony DeAngelo had three assists and Jaccob Slavin contributed two helpers for the winners. B’s head coach Bruce Cassidy said the injury to Lindholm “doesn’t look good” after the game. Game 3 is set for Friday night at 7 p.m. at TD Garden in Boston.
