Hurricanes 5, Sabres 2

The Carolina Hurricanes got some major contributions from their newcomers on Thursday night as they defeated the Buffalo Sabres, 5-2 on “Whaler’s Night” at the Lenovo Center.

Mikko Rantanen most likely played his best game as a Cane and contributed a goal and an assist, the goal an important powerplay tally.

Taylor Hall chipped in as well with his first goal as a Hurricane when he buried a beautiful pass by Jack Roslovic.

This time, the Canes jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first period before Buffalo could muster a goal.

The home team outshot the visitors 17-4 in that opening period and 11-5 in the next. For the game it was 37 shots on goal to 17.

The arena got amped up early as Jesperi Kotkaniemi dropped the gloves with Dylan Cozens at the game’s opening faceoff.

As Rantanen stated after the game, “Good job by KK to start the game and bury the guy there, so that gave us a lot of energy.”

Kotkaniemi said after the game that he rarely starts a game, so thought that might be a good opportunity to get some energy going.

For those keeping track, Kotkaniemi had 11:39 of ice time, even though he was in the penalty box for five minutes to start the game.

Tyson Jost had a team low, 10:57. Jaccob Slavin had a team high 24:37.

Jordan Staal got the scoring started with a goal midway through the first. Then Sebastian Aho scored less than two minutes later, off a nice feed by Rantanen.

Rantanen’s powerplay goal made it 3-0.

Hall’s goal in the second period made it 4-1 and Seth Jarvis skated in an empty net tally to close out the scoring.