“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the age of reasoning, it was the age of foolishness.” etc. etc. etc.
If Charles Dickens had to write this game recap, how would he do so?
On one side of the story, the Hurricanes were able to jump out to a 3-0 lead, which is good stuff.
But much like the previous night against the Florida Panthers, they were unable to hold it.
The Canes came out with jump to start the game and scored early and often.
Just two minutes and change into the contest, Eric Robinson got things started off a pass by Jordan Staal.
One minute later, Jackson Blake tipped in a Nikolaj Ehlers pass to make it 2-0 and the visitors were cooking. It was a powerplay tally for Carolina.
The Hurricanes were awarded another powerplay and they took advantage when Bradly Nadeau buried a pass by Logan Stankoven to make it 3-0, and it looked like the Canes might have mentally gotten over the debacle from the night before.
But the second period was another story.
The Lightning scored three straight goals to tie things up and both teams went to the dressing room for the second intermission tied at three goals each. The Canes were outshot 14-6 in that period.
Andrei Svechnokov notched a pretty goal off a nice pass by Mark Jankowski to start off the third period, but again the lead was short-lived.
Less than a minute later, Ryan McDonagh scored on a breakaway and the home team did not look back.
They would score again three minutes later when Jake Guentzel out battled Mike Reilly from in close then Guentzel scored again on an empty-netter to close it out.
After the game, Jordan Staal said his team had a “meltdown”.
Rod Brind’Amour called the second period “terrible”. He went on to say that “(We made) stupid plays that you cannot win a hockey game doing.”
On one hand, the Hurricanes are still in first place in the East as well as the Metropolitan, but they lost to two teams, one of which they would most likely face in the upcoming playoffs, two teams they have had issues with before.
This game was not as frustrating as the night before when they coughed up three goals in the last 11 minutes of the game, but to blow another three goal lead is not good.
This reminds me a bit of last season when the Hurricanes lost back-to-back games against the Panthers.
First, they lost at home, 6-3, then they went to Florida for redemption and got manhandled, losing 6-0 the following night.
Don’t hold your breath for any type of “retribution” on Tuesday night, but we will see.
Game Summary – https://www.nhl.com/scores/htmlreports/20252026/GS020557.HTM
Event Summary – https://www.nhl.com/scores/htmlreports/20252026/ES020557.HTM