Hurricanes Defeat Penguins 4-3 in Overtime to Complete Regular Season Sweep – The Hockey Writers NHL News Latest News, Analysis & More

The Carolina Hurricanes capped off a weekend back-to-back with a meeting against the Pittsburgh Penguins. This was the third, and final, meeting between the two sides. The Hurricanes won the first two meetings 4-1 (Oct. 18) and 5-1 (Nov. 7) and were looking for the season sweep. The Penguins were looking to take at least one from their Metropolitan Division foe. Dramatically, the Hurricanes completed the regular season sweep with a 4-3 victory in overtime.

Game Recap

Before the dramatic comeback and eventual win, the Penguins scored two goals in two minutes, one from Kevin Hayes for his fifth of the season and Michael Bunting for his 12th. Hayes on an odd-man rush went from his zone to the Hurricanes’ zone and wristed the puck past netminder Dustin Tokarski to make it a 1-0 game. Bunting’s goal came less than two minutes as he got the puck in the slot between the circles and beat Tokarski on a wrist shot. The visitors had two goals on five shots to lead 2-0 after the first 20 minutes. The Hurricanes outshot the Penguins 9-5 in the first period.

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If the Penguins had control of the game after the first period, that vanished within 13 minutes as the Hurricanes scored three goals in the second period to go from 2-0 down to up 3-2. Seth Jarvis got the Hurricanes on the board 4:15 into the middle frame after getting a great pass from Sebastian Aho. Aho stole the puck in the neutral zone and took it into the Penguins’ zone who found Jarvis between the circles and the Winnipeg native scored his 10th of the season and cut the Penguins’ lead in half.

Over eight minutes later, Jalen Chatfield tied the game up at 2-2 with his fourth goal of the season. He kicked off the play with a breakup on the backcheck in his zone, got a great pass from Aho, and shot it past Alex Nedeljkovic. That was Aho’s 30th assist of the season and Jarvis’ secondary assist gave him the 100th of his NHL career.

The night would not end for Jarvis as he scored another goal for the Hurricanes, his second of the game. Brent Burns kept the puck in the zone and some nifty passing between Jordan Staal and Andrei Svechnikov set up Jarvis between the circles once again as he wristed the puck into the net for his third point of the night and 11th goal on the season.

The second period saw the Hurricanes outshoot the Penguins 14-5 and lead 3-2 after entering the period down 2-0. However, the Penguins did tie it up in the third period as Erik Karlsson slapped the puck into the net with help from traffic giving Tokarski issues with tracking the puck. The third period ended with the game tied 3-3 and both teams getting at least a point. Who would get the second point and the win?

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In the end, it was the Hurricanes as Aho was in the right place at the right time as a Dmitry Orlov shot was stopped but not controlled by the Penguins. Aho was Johnny on the spot as he put the rebound away into the net and won the game for the Hurricanes. They completed the regular season sweep with a 4-3 win in overtime.

Aho and Jarvis both had three-point nights with the latter getting the game-winning goal in overtime for the second point for the home team. Aho’s game-winner was his 600th NHL point, becoming the third player in franchise history to reach that milestone joining Eric Staal (775) and Ron Francis (1,175).

A Little Breather

The Hurricanes (24-14-2) have a day off before they head to Tampa Bay to face the Lightning to make up the postponed game from Hurricane Milton in October. The game will be on Tuesday, Jan. 7 with a 7 p.m. puck drop. Meanwhile, the Penguins (17-18-1) head back home to take on the Columbus Blue Jackets on Jan. 7 for a 7 p.m. puck drop as well.