Ducks 4, Hurricanes 1

There haven’t been many bright spots for the Carolina Hurricanes this season, but Noah Hanifin has provided one reason to cheer.

Frederik Andersen will get the start in net, having made 40 saves in the Ducks win against the Predators to begin the month.

Khudobin, a former Carolina Hurricane who was traded to the Ducks in the offseason, was strong in net, stopping 24-of-25 shots on the night to earn his team the victory after a three-game losing streak. The defenseman, the fifth overall pick in the 2015 National Hockey League draft, took a pass from Joakim Nordstrom and blasted a rising shot from the left point at 3:38 of the second period, tying the score 1-1.

“It was nice to get it”, Hanifin said. “Obviously it was nice to get it. I’ll remember that forever”.

“I was getting a little tight”. But you have to shoot to break them down, and probably to be a bit more hungry as far as findin’ those rebounds and those seconds and third-shot opportunities. At 18 years and 295 days, Hanifin became the youngest defenseman in franchise history to score a goal. “Nashville dominated Winnipeg 7-0 on Saturday, improving to 2-1-1 on its five-game homestand, and a tweak to the top two lines by coach Peter Laviolette seemed to spark the Predators.Laviolette swapped Filip Forsberg and Colin Wilson as Forsberg skated with Mike Ribeiro and Craig Smith while Wilson joined James Neal and Mike Fisher”.

“We really could have got a hell of a lot more than we actually did get”, Horcoff said.

The Hurricanes went on power plays within the first 15 seconds of each of the first two periods, but they didn’t convert on either one.

Carl Hagelin was benched in his last game.

Without using a distinct kicking motion, Horcoff directed the puck past Lack into the net and a short review of the play confirmed the goal for a 1-0 lead.

That gave the Ducks two goals on eight shots; they had only one more shot on goal the rest of the period. But the speedy winger assisted on the first two goals, then beat Lack with a wraparound in the third for a 3-1 lead. Khudobin had 11 saves in the third. Hagelin’s goal was his second of the season. After going through just two stretches last season of five games without a goal the Ducks captain didn’t score in his first 13 season season, the longest such spell since 2011-12 when he had droughts of 12, 14 (two times), and 17 games without denting the twine. Anaheim is 5-3-2 in their last 10 contests and after a dismal start they are finally starting to get back to the quality of play we have come to expect out of them and while they still need a few help in the offensive zone they have the pieces in place to right the ship.