The Carolina Hurricanes answered a tough loss the right way Tuesday night in British Columbia, rolling past the Vancouver Canucks 6-3 and finishing off a two-game regular-season sweep. Across those two meetings, Carolina put up 13 goals and allowed five, another strong statement from the defending Stanley Cup champions.
The scoring came in bunches, and it came from everywhere. Nicolas Deslauriers, Nikolaj Ehlers and Logan Stankoven each scored twice, giving the Hurricanes a trio of multi-goal performances in the same game.
Deslauriers, who hadn’t posted a multi-goal outing since Feb. 2022, also kept a quirky trend alive: three of his five career multi-goal games have come against Vancouver. He now has points in two straight games and three points over his last six.
After the game, Deslauriers said: “It’s great. I’ve said it often, I don’t expect to score goals, but it’s fun when it happens.
I know what my job is, and I’m not going to deviate from that and (think) I have to score goals now. It’s not my job, but it’s fun.
I think it keeps the guys loose.”
Ehlers followed up his first goal of the season on Saturday afternoon against the Winnipeg Jets with another sharp showing. His first goal came after Jackson Blake delivered a slick pass across the ice for a backdoor finish into an empty net.
His second was all speed, as he won the puck, drove into the Vancouver zone and beat Leevi Merilaninen five-hole. Ehlers finished with three points on the night and now has three goals and eight points.
Stankoven got the kind of homecoming that makes hockey feel a little scripted. With 400 family and friends from Kamloops, BC, in the building, he opened the scoring in the first period and later added the empty-netter to close it out.
He has now scored five goals in two games against the Canucks this season, including a natural hat trick on Oct. 8.
Of his six goals in 2026-27, five have come against his home province team.
There was also a notable night for Juuso Välimäki, who returned in his first game back in 632 days. He picked up a secondary assist on Stankoven’s goal, giving him his first point since 2025. Rod Brind’Amour liked what he saw from the defenseman in his debut with the team.
“He played really well for not having played since training camp. There was a lot to worry about [throwing him into the lineup under those circumstances], but I thought he had his hands on the first goal with a nice little quick up pass.
I thought he played well. Good on him to contribute.”
Pyotr Kochetkov also stayed perfect in the win column, earning his sixth victory of the season to move to 6-0-0 with a 1.98 goals-against average and .899 save percentage. He stopped 14 of 17 shots, which left him with an .824 save percentage in this one.
One of the goals against came after a teammate slid into him, so the number isn’t quite as clean as it looks. Still, Kochetkov has now won six straight starts and has already swept the Canucks while also beating the Philadelphia Flyers twice.
Jesperi Kotkaniemi kept rolling too, extending his point streak to three games. After scoring in back-to-back games over the weekend, he set up Deslauriers’ first goal and now has two goals and five points in nine games in 2025-26. Last season, he had nine points in 42 games.
The Hurricanes pulled away with a three-goal third period and left Vancouver with another win after Sunday night’s loss. They are now 8-2-1 and will face the Edmonton Oilers on Thursday, Oct. 22.
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The result says plenty about how Carolina is operating under Tulsky, who appears willing to push hard on big-name targets while still keeping the bar high on value. Vancouver was part of the conversation deep into the process, but the Hurricanes ultimately went the other direction, a decision that could linger in future negotiations if the Canucks and others remember how close this one came to turning. [Read more 🡒]