{"id":537769,"date":"2026-04-03T03:17:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T03:17:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/537769\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T03:17:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T03:17:14","slug":"stankoven-scores-twice-in-1st-period-hurricanes-clinch-playoff-berth-with-win-against-blue-jackets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/537769\/","title":{"rendered":"Stankoven scores twice in 1st period, Hurricanes clinch playoff berth with win against Blue Jackets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sebastian Aho<\/a> and Taylor Hall<\/a> each tallied two assists, and Frederik Andersen<\/a>\u00a0made nine saves for the Hurricanes (48-21-6), who have won six of their past eight games, including a 5-2 win in Columbus on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Denton Mateychuk<\/a> scored and Elvis Merzlikins<\/a>\u00a0made 16 saves for the Blue Jackets (38-26-12), who have lost five in a row (0-4-1).<\/p>\n

Columbus is tied with the Ottawa Senators and Detroit Red Wings at 88 points each in the Eastern Conference. With both the Senators and Red Wings having played one fewer game than the Blue Jackets, they are tied for the second wild-card spot, with Columbus one spot outside of the playoff line.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot very much that I liked,\u201d Columbus coach Rick Bowness said. \u201cThey got three goals tonight on something we covered this morning \u2013 about better coverage around our net. They didn\u2019t do what we wanted them to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw some selfish play that I haven\u2019t seen until now. We had some guys out there who poured their whole heart and soul into that game, and then we had some guys give us absolutely nothing. If we want to make a serious effort to get in (to the playoffs), it\u2019s going to take a whole lot more than (what) some of those guys gave us tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stankoven put the Hurricanes ahead 1-0 at 2:27 of the first period when he skated to the low slot and tipped K’Andre Miller<\/a>\u2019s wrist shot from inside the blue line past Merzlikins.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to come out with a lot more urgency, a lot more jam, skating, winning battles,\u201d Blue Jackets forward Boone Jenner<\/a>\u00a0said. \u201cNot sitting back, watching them take it to us. You can\u2019t start like that against any team, especially here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stankoven scored his second of the game on a rebound to make it 2-0 at 8:52. Merzlikins made a left skate save on Hall before Stankoven tapped the puck past Merzlikins’ back side into an open net. The play started after Jackson Blake<\/a>\u00a0won a puck battle in the corner and fed a backhand pass to Hall between the circles.<\/p>\n

\u201c’Blaker’ being able to pull that puck out of the corner and making a nice play, and then \u2018Hallsy\u2019 bringing it to the net,\u201d Stankoven said. \u201cI\u2019ve had chances to score in previous games and I wasn\u2019t able to, so when you do get a chance like that, you make sure it goes in the back of the net.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sebastian Aho and Taylor Hall each tallied two assists, and Frederik Andersen\u00a0made nine saves for the Hurricanes (48-21-6),…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[463,464],"tags":[5,4,60,14,104,718],"class_list":{"0":"post-537769","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl-playoffs","8":"category-stanley-cup-playoffs","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-nhl-playoffs","12":"tag-stanley-cup","13":"tag-stanley-cup-playoffs","14":"tag-stanley-cup-playoffs-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116338612265090047","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}