Necas scores hat trick in Hurricanes win against Avalanche

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Martin Necas scored a natural hat trick in the first period, and the Carolina Hurricanes defeated the Colorado Avalanche 5-2 at PNC Arena on Thursday.

It was the first NHL hat trick for Necas, who has played 330 games.

“I waited long enough and I was hoping to get one soon,” Necas said. “Good start of the game. It’s always nice to get a hatty with a win.”

Michael Bunting scored, and Teuvo Teravainen had an NHL career-high four assists for the Hurricanes (29-16-5), who have won four of their past five games and are 12-3-1 in their past 16. Pyotr Kochetkov allowed two goals on 18 shots; he was relieved at the start of the second period but returned for the third after Antti Raanta (nine saves) left the game with a lower-body injury.

“[Necas] is a talent, we know that,” Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “Sometimes it goes away for a little while, but it’s always there. When you’re that good a player, you can have games like that, where you just explode.”

Samuel Girard had a goal and an assist, and Zach Parise scored his first goal in his third game for the Avalanche (32-16-4), who are 0-2-1 in their past three games. Alexandar Georgiev made 22 saves.

“I thought our guys played extremely hard tonight,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. “You kind of take the slow start and them winning the special teams battle [and it] makes a difference in the hockey game.”

Necas scored on an end-to-end rush to give the Hurricanes a 1-0 lead at 1:52 of the first period. He skated through three Colorado forwards in the neutral zone before scoring on a wrist shot from above the circles that trickled in off Georgiev’s blocker.

Carolina extended it to 2-0 at 6:25 during a delayed penalty. Teravainen made a cross-ice pass to Brent Burns, who set up Necas for a one-timer from the right hash marks.

Necas made it 3-0 to complete the hat trick at 16:51 after Teravainen gathered a rebound and fed a short pass to him for a shot into an open net.

“On the third goal, [Teravainen] just found me there, kind of battling in front,” Necas said. “And a nice pass by ‘Burnsie’ (on the second goal). We’ve got some good players here, so you want to get open and be ready to shoot it.”

Colorado scored twice in five seconds to cut Carolina’s lead to one. Logan O’Connor fed a backhand across the slot to Parise for a tap-in that made it 3-1 at 19:33 before Girard floated a shot from inside the red line past Kochetkov’s glove to bring Colorado within 3-2.

Bunting pushed the lead to 4-2 on the power play at 12:06 of the second period off a backhand from Teravainen.

“He’s got some great poise and silky mitts, and he’s able to make those plays,” Bunting said of Teravainen. “That’s my game on the power play, just find that soft spot and try to get open.”

Seth Jarvis was awarded an empty-net power-play goal with 54 seconds left in the third period for the 5-2 final after a slashing penalty on Mikko Rantanen during a breakaway.

Kochetkov stopped all 10 shots he faced in the third after allowing two goals on eight shots in the first.

“Give him a lot of credit because obviously he wasn’t happy with what happened,” Brind’Amour said. “He’s not thinking he’s going to have to get back in there, but he did and he played great. That’s got to be a real confidence boost for him.”

Colorado was 0-for-6 on the power play.

“We haven’t played a PK like that in a while, in terms of being very aggressive,” Colorado defenseman Cale Makar said. “We’re going to have to have to learn from it because obviously our execution just wasn’t there on the power play.”

NOTES: Raanta will be reevaluated Friday. … Hurricanes defenseman Brett Pesce missed the game with an illness. … Necas has eight points (seven goals, one assist) in seven games since missing five games with an upper-body injury. … Jarvis has seven points (one goal, six assists) in a six-game point streak. … The game was Colorado’s third on a six-game road trip following the NHL All-Star break. The Avalanche are 0-for-12 on the power play in the three games. … Parise signed a one-year contract with Colorado on Jan. 26 and made his season debut Monday.