The Carolina Hurricanes blinked and fell behind early as the Toronto Maple Leafs scored on their very first shot of the game and the Canes went on to lose to the Leafs, 5-1 on Thursday night at the Lenovo Center.
Midway through the first, the puck took a weird bounce off the end boards, bounced out front to Scott Laughton, and that also ended up in the net to make it 2-0.
Advertisement
Fred Andersen was in net and Rod Brind’Amour stayed with the “bad luck” goalie while red hot Brandon Bussi stayed on the bench.
Andersen has now lost his last six starts. His stats dropped to a record of 5-7-2, a GAA of 3.15 and a SV% of .875.
The Canes made a game of it before the end of the period when Seth Jarvis buried a beautiful no-look pass by Shayne Gostisbehere, but that would be it for Carolina.
That gave Jarvis a team high 16 goals.
The Leafs scored twice more in the second period to take a commanding 4-1 lead and the home team was pretty much listless after that, or as Captain Jordan Staal said, “there was no spark tonight”.
Advertisement
Toronto would add an empty netter to finish things off. The good news is that most Carolina fans had left the building by this time and did not witness it.
While the goals against Andersen could be described as just “bad luck”, other goalies are making some saves on those weird bounces and odd man rushes.
Perhaps it’s time to start with a “good luck” goalie?
The Canes will hold a practice on Friday to help prepare for a back-to-back scenario this weekend against the Predators and Blue Jackets.
Game Summary – https://www.nhl.com/scores/htmlreports/20252026/GS020431.HTM
Event Summary – https://www.nhl.com/scores/htmlreports/20252026/ES020431.HTM