Carolina beat Seattle 4-1 on Thursday in Helsinki and will face the Kraken again Saturday in the second game of the NHL Global Series.
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The Carolina Hurricanes will look to complete a sweep of the Seattle Kraken in Helsinki, Finland, when the teams play their second NHL Global Series game on Saturday.
Carolina won 4-1 on Thursday in the first contest of the two-game set. Sebastian Aho, a native of Rauma, Finland, had two goals for the Hurricanes, and Finnish defenceman Juuso Valimaki also scored.
Aho leads Carolina in goals (12), assists (16) and points (28), and he has had multiple points in each of his last three games. The win was Carolina’s seventh victory in eight games.
After the opener, Aho said: “Obviously it felt good. Actually (I was) a little nervous before the game. You hope to win that game for sure, that's the main thing. But I'd be lying if I said that didn't feel good.”
The Hurricanes’ offensive production on Thursday included goals and contributions beyond Aho. Nikolaj Ehlers added a goal and an assist, while Logan Stankoven and defenceman K’Andre Miller each recorded two assists. In goal, Brandon Bussi made 12 saves.
Seattle’s only goal was scored by Frederick Gaudreau, his team-leading eighth of the season. Philipp Grubauer made 26 saves for the Kraken.
The Kraken had been hoping to bounce back after losing for the second straight time and third time in four games. Lane Lambert, the Seattle coach, said, “They're obviously a very good team. They're fast, they're connected. It seems like they just know two seconds before where the puck is going to go. We weren't as connected.” He added, “We had a plan coming in; I don't know that we stuck to it very well. They're Stanley Cup champions for a reason. There's not a lot of ice out there. I think mentally we have to be better prepared individually for that.”
Ahead of Saturday, Pyotr Kochetkov is expected to start for Carolina. He is 11-1-0 with a 1.67 goals-against average, a .920 save percentage and two shutouts in 12 games.
Several players enter the rematch with current momentum. Jackson Blake has a 10-game point streak for Seattle, and Stankoven has extended his scoring run to six games. For the Kraken, Kaapo Kakko said he had “around 20” family members and friends at Thursday’s game and added, “It will be good to see them. I've seen just a couple of them before the game, and all the rest of (them) after. So, hopefully they had fun. They wanted us to win also, but ...”
Berkly Catton’s eight-game point streak for Seattle was snapped in the 4-1 loss. Meanwhile, Aho attended an NHL game in Helsinki in 2010, when the Hurricanes played the Minnesota Wild, and said the experience of seeing the league in person is “cool to see all of it, the show and high-pace, high-level hockey.”
A group from Aho’s youth club, Karpat, travelled to Helsinki for the games. “Those are people that are in the same position that I was in years ago,” Aho said. “You know what it means now because you went through it, how life-changing it can be.”
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