Hurricanes pounce on weary Red Wings
RALEIGH, N.C. -- The Carolina Hurricanes jumped on the Detroit Red Wings early, and Cam Ward finished with 21 saves in a 4-1 victory Tuesday night at PNC Arena.
Lee Stempniak, Joakim Nordstrom, Jordan Staal and Elias Lindholm scored as the Hurricanes stretched their points streak to 12 games. Justin Faulk registered two assists.
Detroit's Tomas Nosek prevented a shutout with 6:27 remaining, scoring his first NHL goal.
The Hurricanes (34-27-14) are 8-0-4 in their last dozen games, avenging an overtime setback from a night earlier in the same building and maintaining their late-season push to make the playoffs.
Red Wings goalie Jimmy Howard made 28 saves. He had won in his previous three outings.
Detroit (31-33-12) was playing its third game in as many days, a schedule necessitated by a December postponement in Raleigh.
The Red Wings appeared out of energy, though they had 12 of their 22 shots in the third period. Carolina held an 11-4 edge in first-period shots and the Detroit didn't register a second-period shot until more than 4 1/2 minutes had expired. Shortly after, the Red Wings nearly went an entire power play without posting a shot.
Stempniak scored on Carolina's second shot of the game, coming 10:10 into the first period. His shot went through traffic.
Nordstrom, who was playing in his 200th NHL game, made it 2-0 about five minutes later when he scored off a rebound of Brett Pesce's shot.
Staal's goal came with 6:24 remaining in the second period for his first point in four games.
A night earlier, the game ended with a Detroit overtime goal on a sequence that left Carolina goalie Eddie Lack flattened in the goal.
Lack was taken off the ice on a stretcher after the collision with Detroit center Andreas Athanasiou, who scored the winning goal. Lack was taken to an area hospital but was sent home a few hours later.
Lack was back with the team Tuesday morning after being diagnosed with a neck strain. He was fine during a between-periods television interview, though a timetable for his potential return remains unclear.
Athanasiou, who scored overtime winners the previous two nights, wasn't in Detroit's lineup because of an upper-body ailment.
NOTES: Carolina LW Jeff Skinner had his seven-game points streak end. ... Detroit had matched its season high by playing in four consecutive games that extended to at least overtime. The other four-game stretch came in January. ... Red Wings C Luke Glendening sat out with a lower-body injury. Detroit called up C Ben Street and put him in the lineup. ... In his first game in two weeks, D Matt Tennyson notched an assist on Carolina's third goal. ... The Hurricanes called up G Alex Nedeljkovic on an emergency basis from the Florida Everblades of the ECHL. He played in one previous game with Carolina this season with his NHL debut in January. ... The Red Wings complete their three-game road swing Thursday night at Tampa Bay. ... The Hurricanes have two more home games this week, with Thursday night's visit from Tampa Bay.