The Carolina Hurricanes have quickly flipped the script on their early season, and Tuesday night in Montreal was the latest proof. After opening 0-1-1 at home, they went on the road and stacked up two straight wins - a 3-2 overtime victory over the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday, Oct. 3, followed by a 6-4 win over the Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday, Oct. 6.
Sebastian Aho and Taylor Hall drove the offense in a game that never settled into a normal rhythm. Aho entered the night with three goals and four points in three games, already off to the best start of his career, and he kept it rolling.
He finished with a power-play goal, giving him four goals in the last three games and seven points overall, with three of those goals coming on the power play. He also picked up a secondary assist on Hall’s second goal and the primary assist on Andrei Svechnikov’s empty-netter that sealed the 6-4 final.
Afterward, Aho pointed to the work the Hurricanes got from their special teams, especially the penalty kill.
“The penalty kill was unreal. Slavo, Chatty, Jordo, Marty, those guys, especially on the five-on-three, it’s just so huge and gives us so much momentum.
Obviously, we got the goal on the power play. It wasn’t the prettiest, and I wasn’t too happy about it today, but when you score a goal, it’s big, right?
So, we’ll take that.”
Carolina’s power play went 1-for-5, while the penalty kill held up on 5-of-6 chances. The Hurricanes are built more around five-on-five play, but on this night the special teams battle was enough to tilt things their way.
Hall had the kind of night that can jump-start a season. He scored twice for his first goals of the year and finished as the game’s first star. The Calgary native said the game had an odd feel from the start.
“It was a weird game. A lot of power plays, a lot of four-on-fours, or five-on-threes, stuff like that.
I thought the penalty kill was really good, obviously. The power play got us one.
It was a game that you want to come out with a win. I don’t think either side feels tremendous about their game.
It’s a fun building for us to play in, and we seem to do well here, so we’ll take the two points and get home.”
The Hurricanes had to sweat it out late after Montreal cut the lead to 5-4 with an extra-attacker goal, but Svechnikov’s empty-netter closed the door. The result pushed Rod Brind’Amour’s team to 2-1-1 after dropping its first two games at home.
Carolina now heads back to Raleigh for Thursday, Oct. 8, when it hosts the 2-2-0 Vancouver Canucks. Through four games of the 2026-27 season, the Hurricanes have five points, and the early road response has them back on track heading into their first home win attempt of the year.
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For the moment, the Canadiens are moving ahead with a different crease plan. Jacob Fowler has been recalled and will get the start against the Nashville Predators, while Jakub Dobes is there to back him up as Montreal braces for the possibility that this could affect its goaltending picture for more than just one night. [Read more 🡒]
Canadiens Blew Another Lead But Two Lineup Bright Spots Emerged
The Canadiens had a chance to settle things down after jumping out to a 2-0 lead against Nashville, but the game slipped away late when the Predators scored three unanswered goals, including two empty-netters. The loss fit an early-season pattern for Montreal, which has had trouble protecting leads and has also been stuck in some rough second periods, where momentum has tilted away from the group far too often.
Still, there were a couple of encouraging signs buried in the defeat. Adam Engstrom, in his first appearance of the season, looked solid alongside Arber Xhekaj on the third defense pair despite limited ice time, and the second forward line posted the best expected goals-for percentage on the club. For a team searching for cleaner minutes and more stability, those are the kinds of details that matter even when the final score does not cooperate. [Read more 🡒]