{"id":537965,"date":"2026-04-03T05:30:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T05:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/537965\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T05:30:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T05:30:18","slug":"stankoven-scores-twice-hurricanes-defeat-blue-jackets-to-clinch-playoff-berth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/537965\/","title":{"rendered":"Stankoven scores twice, Hurricanes defeat Blue Jackets to clinch playoff berth"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sebastian Aho<\/a> and Taylor Hall<\/a> each had two assists, and Frederik Andersen<\/a> made 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, which remained one point behind the New York Islanders for third in the Metropolitan with a game in hand, is tied in points with the Ottawa Senators and Detroit Red Wings. The Senators hold the second wild card into the playoffs from the Eastern Conference by virtue of having more regulation wins (33) than the Red Wings (29) and having played one fewer game than the Blue Jackets.<\/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 — 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 captain 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\u00a0Stankoven 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 had two assists, and Frederik Andersen made nine saves for the Hurricanes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5107],"tags":[194,29,5176,5,195,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-537965","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-carolina-hurricanes","8":"tag-carolina","9":"tag-carolina-hurricanes","10":"tag-carolinahurricanes","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-hurricanes","13":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116339135282160626","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537965","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=537965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537965\/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=537965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}