Aho has 4 points, Hurricanes defeat Predators

NASHVILLE – Sebastian Aho had a goal and three assists for the Carolina Hurricanes in a 5-2 win against the Nashville Predators at Bridgestone Arena on Wednesday.

Brent Burns, Andrei Svechnikov and Seth Jarvis each had a goal and an assist for the Hurricanes (18-13-4), who had lost two in a row. Pyotr Kochetkov made 35 saves.

“We scored, which was nice,” Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “The power play was good, obviously. Connecting. And then I thought [Kochetkov] played really well. At the end of the day, that’s the difference. He was solid. He outplayed the other guy, and if we can get that, we have a chance. I don’t know that we were necessarily great tonight, but we got ahead and it was good enough.”

Ryan O'Reilly had a goal and an assist, and Gustav Nyquist scored for the Predators (19-16-0), who have lost three of their past four games. Juuse Saros allowed five goals on 19 shots and was replaced after the second period by Yaroslav Askarov, who made six saves.

“I think we were a little careless at times,” Nashville coach Andrew Brunette said. “I think it was an emotional game. I thought we were excited to play, maybe a little bit too rambunctious a few different times. When you’re not killing too many penalties tonight, it’s tough to take penalties. We took some offensive zone penalties that probably we wouldn’t like to take.”

Aho gave the Hurricanes a 1-0 lead at 9:50 of the first period when his wrist shot on the power play deflected in off Predators defenseman Luke Schenn. It was Aho’s 500th NHL point in his 552nd game.

“[The power play] is clicking,” Aho said. “Obviously, it kind of feeds the confidence and all of that stuff when you get a couple goals there. I think as of late we’ve been pretty solid in executing those plays and those passes. Whenever we have a chance, we’ve been able to bury it. That’s a big part of the game these days. Just try to build off this.”

Burns scored a power-play goal to give the Hurricanes a 2-0 lead at 15:08 of the first period. Aho passed the puck to Burns, who beat Saros with a wrist shot through traffic from the point.

“I think that was huge because it is a little bit of a tough day for all the guys,” Brind’Amour said. “Getting ahead by a couple even though we certainly didn’t dominate that period by any means, it was a little bit fortunate. We’ll take it. I think at the end of the day we needed the two points. We got it, and now we’ll move on.”

Nyquist cut it to 2-1 at 1:18 of the second period on the rebound of a shot by O’Reilly.

Svechnikov responded to make it 3-1 at 3:44. He received a pass from Aho, controlled the puck between his legs and beat Saros with the shot from the crease.

O’Reilly made it 3-2 at 5:08 with a power-play goal, scoring on a rebound in the crease off a shot from Colton Sissons.

“I thought we did a lot of good things,” O’Reilly said. “Obviously, we’ve got to find a way to put the puck in the net a little bit better. We had some chances. Like I said, myself, I’m better than the shots I was putting on net there. Getting those point-blank opportunities and not putting them in the back of the net, I’m better than that, for sure. Special teams, we lost that battle tonight, which is frustrating.”

Jack Drury pushed it to 4-2 at 9:56, getting to a loose puck in the slot and scoring with a backhand

Jarvis scored a power-play goal on a redirection in front at 17:54 for the 5-2 final.

NOTES: The Hurricanes were 3-for-6 on the power play and are 5-for-10 in their past two games. … Aho became the fourth player to reach 500 points in Hurricanes/Hartford Whalers history, and the second fastest to do so, behind Ron Francis (426 games). … Predators forward Yakov Trenin was a healthy scratch for the second time this season.