RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Warren Foegele scored the first of three Carolina goals in under eight minutes and the Hurricanes beat the Nashville Predators 4-1 to snap a two-game skid Thursday night.
Andrei Svechnikov, Vincent Trocheck and Sebastian Aho also scored for the Hurricanes. Svechnikov and Trocheck each added an assist.
“If you want to be one of the best teams in the league, you’ve got to come every single night,” Trocheck said. “Laying an egg like we did the last couple, it’s important to get back on track and make sure we’re playing our game.”
Erik Haula had a short-handed goal for Nashville against his former team, trimming the deficit to 3-1 in the third period.
Petr Mrazek made 19 saves for Carolina, improving to 3-0-1 since returning from a thumb injury that sidelined him for more than two months.
Juuse Saros stopped 25 shots for the Predators, who lost for only the second time in seven games.
“I think we had chances to get up early in the game in the first period,” Nashville coach John Hynes said. “I didn’t think we really responded well after the first-period goal against.”
Foegele, who hadn’t scored in the first six games of a scheduled eight-game homestand, got his goal in transition with 1:34 to play in the first period. Jordan Staal’s pass set it up.
“I thought I had a step on my guy and I was hoping (Staal) saw me, and just a beautiful pass by him,” Foegele said.
Svechnikov scored for the first time in eight games, taking a pass from Dougie Hamilton and converting just 14 seconds into the second.
“When you score a goal, you feel more confident,” Svechnikov said. “It’s just one goal so I’ve got to keep going.”
Trocheck turned a Nashville turnover into another goal, batting in a rebound of his own shot to make it 3-0.
Aho’s power-play goal with 2:38 left capped the scoring.
WELCOME ABOARD
Carolina defenseman Jani Hakanpaa was in the lineup three days after joining the team in a trade from Anaheim.
“It was a good first game for him,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “A new system, there’s a lot going on, for a D-man especially.”
Hakanpaa was on the ice for the game’s first goal. Later, he was assessed a second-period tripping penalty.
He shared the team lead with two blocked shots.
“He’s a massive body out there,” Trocheck said. “He plays physical. He knows his role and he played it well tonight.”
Nashville made a trade-deadline move by picking up veteran defenseman Erik Gudbranson from Ottawa earlier in the week. He didn’t play Thursday night.
POWER OUTAGE
The Predators were 0 for 4 on power plays.
“We executed pretty well on what we wanted to do,” Brind’Amour said of the penalty killing. “You don’t like taking penalties. I thought when we did, we did a nice job. That was a key part of the game.”
Carolina has killed off 16 of its last 17 short-handed situations.
Nashville is 0 for 12 on power plays in the last five games. This was only the second game in the last 11 that the Predators had at least four power plays.
“We didn’t win many faceoffs on power plays,” Hynes said, noting that chances decreased right way.
ANOTHER CHANCE
Nashville had left wing Tanner Jeannot in the lineup for the third game in a row and fourth time this season. He scored his first NHL goal two nights earlier against Tampa Bay,
Through two periods, only Jeannot and Mattias Ekholm had more than one shot on goal for the Predators. They each had two.
By the end of the game, Jeannot had a team-high seven hits.
UP NEXT
The teams meet in a rematch Saturday night in Raleigh.
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