Hurricanes hold off Predators for third straight win

Sebastian Aho scored two goals, and the Carolina Hurricanes held off the Nashville Predators for a 4-2 win at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville on Tuesday.

Steven Lorentz scored his first NHL goal, and James Reimer made 36 saves for Carolina (15-6-1), which defeated the Florida Panthers 3-2 in overtime on Monday and has won three straight.
"We dominated for two periods," Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour said. "The other team gets paid a lot of money and they're going to play hard in the third period. I will take this all day long."
Calle Jarnkrok and Mattias Ekholm scored in the third period for Nashville (10-12-0). Pekka Rinne made 16 saves in relief of Juuse Saros, who allowed two goals on 10 shots in the first period before leaving with an undisclosed injury.
"They're a good team, they're right on top of you," Predators forward Nick Cousins said. "Their goalie played well too, but at the same time, in the third period we made it tougher on their goalie and their defense, and that's more the style we like to play."
Aho gave the Hurricanes a 1-0 lead at 12:36 of the first period. Martin Necas forced a turnover by Roman Josi along the left boards before passing to Aho, who was alone in the slot.
Vincent Trocheck scored his Carolina-leading 12th goal of the season to make it 2-0 when he redirected Dougie Hamilton's shot on the power play at 16:13.
"I thought in the first period, we didn't play fast enough," Nashville coach John Hynes said. "We weren't at the level we needed to be right off the start. Some adjustments were made, and players did a better job as the game went on, but you don't want to get down like that."

Lorentz, who was playing in his 12th NHL game, gathered a bouncing puck in the low slot and lifted a shot over Rinne to extend the lead to 3-0 at 4:48 of the second period.
"I just tried to raise it and it found a corner," Lorentz said. "I'm so happy it went in. I don't remember what happened afterwards, but the boys tell me I was pretty excited and I celebrated big."

Jarnkrok tapped in a centering pass from Ekholm near the right post on the power play to make it 3-1 at 6:00 of the third. Ekholm then cut it to 3-2 at 8:17 when his shot from the point deflected off the stick of Hurricanes forward Jordan Martinook.
Aho scored a power-play goal into an empty net with 14 seconds remaining for the 4-2 final.
The Predators outshot the Hurricanes 17-7 in the third period.
"In the third, we were all over them," Ekholm said. "To expect us to score three goals in the third going into it, it's obviously a tough task. But the way it played out, I thought we had chances to do it."
Reimer helped preserve the lead by making a glove save on Filip Forsberg from the right hash marks at 8:42, a pad save on Matt Duchene driving the net at 11:28, and another pad save on a one-timer from Jarnkrok at 16:22.
"They were on full-court press and they were coming at us," Brind'Amour said. "Two or three great stops. Any successful team is going to have goaltending that comes up big when they need it and that's what we had tonight."
Reimer said, "As a goalie, when you're seeing it, that's a result of how well your teammates are battling in front of you to clear guys out and to tie up sticks. The guys are working incredibly hard right now."
NOTES:The Predators announced before the game that defenseman Ryan Ellis will be out 4-6 weeks with an upper-body injury, forward Luke Kunin will be out 2-4 weeks with a lower-body injury, and that center Ryan Johansen was placed on the NHL COVID-19 protocol list. … Nashville forward Tanner Jeannot blocked one shot in 6:28 of ice time in his NHL debut. … Trocheck has scored in three straight games and leads Carolina with 10 points (five goals, five assists) on the power play.