The Carolina Hurricanes will look to extend their winning streak to six games when they close their regular season Tuesday night in Columbus against the Blue Jackets.
Carolina (52-22-7, 111 points) doubled up the Chicago Blackhawks 4-2 on Sunday night.
Forward Seth Jarvis scored a pair of goals as the playoff-bound Hurricanes swept the season series against the Blackhawks.
“Just play our game,” said Sebastian Aho, who also scored in Sunday’s win. “Kind of business as usual. You try to win hockey games, doing it with good habits and just play our game.
“That’s pretty simple. You try to build, build your game towards Game 1 of the playoffs. I think we’ve done a pretty good job of just sticking with it and playing our game. I know it’s a cliché. Especially this time of year, it’s big to not pick up bad habits.”
The Hurricanes, second in the Metropolitan Division, have won eight of their past 10 games and are 25-12-3 on the road this season.
Forward Jake Guentzel has points in eight straight games (six goals, seven assists), while defenseman Jaccob Slavin has a goal and six assists in his past five outings.
Goaltender Pyotr Kochetkov is 23-13-4 this season with a 2.33 GAA and a .911 save percentage. In his only other start against Columbus, he made 21 saves in the Hurricanes’ 3-2 win on Nov. 26.
“Obviously, we are one of the best teams in this league,” said Andrei Svechnikov, who had two assists in Sunday’s win. “We’ve got a great mentality and a great team to do what we did this season, and we’re not done yet.
“We’ve got one more game to go here. Our mentality is the same. We’ve got to win every game and just stick with that.”
Carolina heads to Columbus looking to sweep the season series against the Jackets. The Hurricanes have won all three meetings between the clubs, outscoring the Blue Jackets 10-4.
The Blue Jackets (26-43-12, 64 points), last in the Eastern Conference, have lost four straight games after falling 6-4 to the Nashville Predators on Saturday.
Forward Trey Fix-Wolansky scored twice, and center Justin Danforth added three assists in the loss in Nashville.
“I think there were parts of the game where we competed, and there were parts of the game where we got away from our game a little bit,” Danforth said. “This team is just too good. They’ll make you pay; their transition is great. They move the puck really fast. They made us pay when we made mistakes.”
Columbus has just three wins in its past 14 games and is 16-19-5 on home ice this season.
Fix-Wolansky has three points (two goals, one assist) over his past three games. Defenseman Zach Werenski has two goals and two assists in his past five outings.
Saturday’s goals were the first of the season for Fix-Wolansky.
“That was a big weight lifted off my shoulders,” he said. “I’ve been trying to buy one for a while, so it was nice to see two go in (on Saturday).”
Columbus goaltender Jet Greaves is 2-6-0 with a 3.55 GAA and a .906 save percentage in eight games this season.
-Field Level Media