Canes’ prospects, depth pieces topple Panthers 5-2

Sep 30, 2022 - 1:36 AM

The Carolina Hurricanes moved to 2-0 for the preseason with a 5-2 win over the Florida Panthers Thursday night, and this time it was the Canes’ prospects and depth players making up the roster.

The Canes got goals from Stefan Noesen, Derek Stepan, Justin Robidas, Vasiliy Ponomarev and Jack Drury, as a roster of mostly non-NHL players and guys fighting for an NHL spot beat an NHL-heavy Panthers roster.

Antti Raanta started in net for the Canes and made 20 saves while allowing one goal over two periods of play. Zach Sawchenko played the third period, allowing one goal while making 8 saves.

This will be a pretty brief recap because, well, nobody could watch a lot of the game. The Panthers had some technical issues with the stream, which didn’t come on until sometime in the second period.

Regardless, here’s the box score recap of how the first two periods went:

Noesen, who is certainly fighting for an NHL spot with the Canes, opened up the scoring on the power play 12:15 into the first period. The goal was given to Noesen, then to Ryan Dzingel and then back to Noesen. I’ll let Walt Ruff, who was in the building, describe it for you.

Then at the 15:50 mark of the first period, Stepan scored shorthanded. Stepan is on a professional tryout, as he’s once again trying to make his case for a spot in Carolina’s lineup.

Then in the second period, it was the prospects that made the difference for the Hurricanes. Robidas made it 3-0 early in the middle period, with Ponomarev adding another on the power play after Sam Bennett opened the scoring for the home team.

The Canes made it 5-1 midway through the third period, as Calvin de Haan gathered the puck at the blue line and rifled a shot towards net. Ondrej Kase and Drury filled the lane, and Drury got his stick to it to help it into the net.

Florida got one back as Brandon Montour unleashed a filthy move to beat Sawchenko and make it 5-2.

The Canes saw at the win, as the young guns and veterans fighting for a spot put together a pretty impressive performance.

In addition to the goals, Ryan Dzingel, Dylan Coghlan, Joseph LaBate, Jamieson Rees, max Lajoie, Jalen Chatfield, Calvin de Haan and Jordan Martinook all had assists.

The Canes and Panthers will faceoff in Raleigh on Saturday at 1 p.m.