Ducks hold off Hurricanes to give Cronin 1st win

ANAHEIM -- Frank Vatrano had a hat trick for the Anaheim Ducks, who got their first win under coach Greg Cronin with a 6-3 victory against the Carolina Hurricanes at Honda Center on Sunday.

Cam Fowler had a goal and an assist, Pavel Mintyukov scored his first NHL goal, and Ryan Strome and Mason McTavish each had two assists for Anaheim (1-1-0), which was coming off a 4-1 loss at the Vegas Golden Knights on Saturday. Lukas Dostal made 32 saves.

"It's great to get a hat trick, but it doesn't mean anything if you don't win the game," Vatrano said.

Teuvo Teravainen scored two goals, and Antti Raanta made 19 saves in his season debut for Carolina (2-1-0), which was coming off a 6-5 shootout win at the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday.

"We just dug ourselves too much of a hole," Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour said. "I credit the guys for at least realizing it wasn't going well, and they figured a way to try and get back into it."

Although Anaheim didn't get its first shot on goal until 5:35 of the first period, it scored on two of its next three shots.

Sam Carrick gave the Ducks a 1-0 lead at 6:52, scoring with a wrist shot over Raanta's blocker from the left circle.

Vatrano then made it 2-0 at 8:31 when he scored five-hole from the bottom of the right circle.

Mintyukov, who was the No. 10 pick in the 2022 NHL Draft, gave the Ducks a 3-0 lead at 12:06, shooting into an open net off a backhand pass from fellow rookie defenseman Jackson LaCombe, who earned his first NHL point on the play.

"We got in late last night and I was a little worried about the energy level," Cronin said. "I thought the crowd played a big role in getting us on our toes early."

Hurricanes forward Jordan Martinook thought they made it too easy for the Ducks to transition into the offensive zone in the first period.

"Whenever you let them in easy, just bad stuff happens from then on in," he said. "What makes us successful is hounding pucks, going in and getting on the forecheck and then helping our [defense] by coming back. It's not a hard recipe. It's pretty simple, and when we're simple, we're obviously a better team."

Teravainen made it 3-1 at 13:52 of the second period. He batted down an errant shot with his stick before scoring short side on Dostal from the right circle.

Vatrano responded for the Ducks to push it to 4-1 at 16:44, shooting blocker side from the right circle off a pass from Strome from below the goal line.

Teravainen scored his fourth goal of the season on a slap shot from just inside the blue line during a power play to cut it to 4-2 at 3:01 of the third period.

Martin Necas then cut it to 4-3 at 15:29 with his own power-play goal, tapping in a backdoor pass from Michael Bunting.

However, Fowler (18:03) and Vatrano (18:41) each scored into an empty net for the 6-3 final.

"We knew they were going to come in the third," Cronin said. "To me, the big positive in that is we kept them to the outside and we had a lot of blocked shots and we won the game, so that's going to be a lot of third periods. Obviously, it's a style in the NHL, people throw everything at you, and I thought we did a good job weathering the storm."

NOTES: The Ducks have won three straight against the Hurricanes and are 16-4-1 in their past 21 games against them. ... Anaheim has won eight straight home openers, which is tied with the Toronto Maple Leafs and Boston Bruins for the longest active streak in the NHL. ... Strome's assist on Mintyukov's goal was his 400th NHL point. ... LaCombe's assist on Mintyukov's goal marked the fifth time in NHL history that a defenseman has scored his first NHL goal off an assist from another defenseman who recorded his first NHL point.