Hanafin, Darling carry Hurricanes past Blue Jackets
RALEIGH, N.C. -- Noah Hanifin scored the go-ahead goal in the second period and Scott Darling stopped 35 shots to snap a five-game winless streak as the Carolina Hurricanes defeated the Columbus Blue Jackets 2-1 on Saturday night.
Carolina (14-11-7) won its third straight in its first game home after a season-long six-game road trip, which included an overtime victory in Buffalo on Friday night.
Darling was 0-3-2 in his last five decisions and hadn't won since Nov. 26. Meanwhile, Hanifin's sixth goal of the season with 7:02 left in the second is now one more than the team's other six defensemen combined. The fifth overall pick in the 2015 draft had four goals in each of his first two NHL seasons.
The victory improved Carolina to 12-3-4 in its last 19 meetings with the Blue Jackets (20-12-1), who failed to score on the power play in four attempts and is now 3-for-38 on the road this season with the man advantage -- 30th in the NHL.
Hanifin's rebound goal came with the teams playing 4-on-4 as the 20-year-old defenseman drove the net after Jeff Skinner had gained the zone and connected on a blind backhanded pass to Derek Ryan.
Carolina opened the scoring less than four minutes in when a cross-crease pass from Jordan Staal was broken up by Columbus defenseman Jack Johnson, but the puck deflected off Johnson's stick and slid under the pads of a surprised Sergei Bobrovsky for Staal's ninth of the season.
Columbus tied the score eight minutes later then Cam Atkinson won a board battle and centered a pass to the slot that was deflected past Darling by Alexander Wennberg, who scored just his third of the season as the Blue Jackets peppered Darling with 16 first-period shots.
NOTES: In a scheduling quirk, Carolina has now played Columbus four times in its first 32 games to end the season series with the Blue Jackets while having yet to play Metropolitan Division teams New Jersey, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Washington. ... Carolina C Jordan Staal moved within four goals of 200 for his career. ... Columbus G Sergei Bobrovsky, tied for third in the league with 17 wins, allowed more than two goals for just the sixth time in his last 18 starts. ... Carolina scored first for the seventh time in its last nine games. ... Columbus was an NHL-best 10-1-1 in one-goal games.