Two of the three teams in Metropolitan Division playoff spots meet on Monday night when the Carolina Hurricanes visit the Philadelphia Flyers.<\/p>\n
The Hurricanes (52-22-6, 110 points) have clinched the division title, while the Flyers (41-27-12, 94 points) are in third. With two games to play, they lead the Washington Capitals by one point, the Columbus Blue Jackets by two, and the New York Islanders by three. The Flyers have a game in hand on Washington.<\/p>\n
Philadelphia has taken four of its last five after a 7-1 win over the host Winnipeg Jets on Saturday.<\/p>\n
This had been considered a rebuilding season for the Flyers earlier in the campaign under first-year coach Rick Tocchet.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just that belief, that trust in this room,\u201d said Noah Cates, who had a goal and two assists in Saturday\u2019s victory. \u201cEveryone\u2019s going, everyone\u2019s playing their best hockey, everyone\u2019s playing for the crest, is kind of what it feels like. And it\u2019s been a ton of fun. Just no passengers, we\u2019re playing hard, and like I said, we have huge games next week and we just got to keep playing, playing the right way. Everyone playing to their identity and to our team identity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sean Couturier produced two goals and an assist, and Matvei Michkov had a goal and an assist. Porter Martone also scored to stretch his point streak to four games (three goals, three assists).<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019re playing the right way,\u201d Couturier said. \u201cWe\u2019re not giving up a whole lot defensively, so that\u2019s good. It\u2019s hard for opposing teams to play us. Special teams, PK especially, stepped up (Saturday), bounced back from a tough game last game in Detroit (a 6-3 road loss on Thursday). That\u2019s encouraging, and we\u2019ve just got to keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Hurricanes beat the host Utah Mammoth 4-1 on Saturday, have won six of their last seven and have a 12-point lead on the second-place Pittsburgh Penguins as they prepare for the playoffs.<\/p>\n
Captain Jordan Staal had a goal and an assist on Saturday to reach the 20-goal mark for the first time since 2015-16.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not necessarily known for my offensive skills, but I always want to chip in that way and it\u2019s always nice to score goals,\u201d Staal said. \u201c\u2026 It always feels good and I\u2019ll take it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Staal directed credit to Frederik Andersen and his 26 saves.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought it was a good effort,\u201d Staal said. \u201cThere was a little lull in our game, probably in the second. Freddie (Andersen) came up big and he made some big saves throughout the whole game, but he was really good in the second for us to keep it at bay. Then the boys grinded in third.\u201d<\/p>\n
The win came despite a slew of scratches for apparent load management. Logan Stankoven, William Carrier, Jackson Blake, Taylor Hall, Mark Jankowski, and defensemen Jalen Chatfield and K\u2019Andre Miller all sat out.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought in the third period, we increased our effort level,\u201d Carolina coach Rod Brind\u2019Amour said. \u201cYou look at the little things, (Staal) winning all the faceoffs, getting a big goal by (Sebastian Aho) there and then (Andersen) made some big saves. That\u2019s the end of the day. That\u2019s the game.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two of the three teams in Metropolitan Division playoff spots meet on Monday night when the Carolina Hurricanes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":551451,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5107],"tags":[194,29,5176,5,195,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-551450","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\/116394530219105763","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551450","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=551450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/551451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}