Seth Jarvis and Jaccob Slavin each had a goal and an assist for the visiting Carolina Hurricanes in a 5-2 win against the St. Louis Blues on Friday.
Jake Guentzel scored a pair of empty-net goals for the Hurricanes (51-22-7, 109 points), who have won four straight and pulled to within a point of the New York Rangers for the Metropolitan Division lead. Frederik Andersen made 29 saves.
Zack Bolduc and Jordan Kyrou scored, and Jordan Binnington made 36 saves for the Blues (42-33-5, 89 points), who failed to gain ground in the race for the second wild card from the Western Conference.
Bolduc gave St. Louis a 1-0 lead at 17:34 of the first period. Nick Leddy took a Robert Thomas pass to the left circle before feeding Bolduc with a no-look pass through the seam for a one-timer that went glove side.
Kasperi Kapanen had a chance to double it on a breakaway with just over a minute remaining, but his shot went wide.
Seconds later, Jordan Martinook tied it 1-1. Andrei Svechnikov collected the loose puck that bounced up the ice after Kapanen’s attempt and sent a pass to Martinook inside the offensive zone. Martinook then cut to the middle before sending a wrist shot sliding under Binnington’s right pad at 18:59.
Kyrou scored on the power play to put the Blues ahead 2-1 at 5:41 of the second period. With four Hurricanes converging toward him in the left circle, Pavel Buchnevich sent a backhand to the open side of the ice for Kyrou, who beat a screened Andersen under his right arm.
Two minutes later, Buchnevich tried to slide a backhand past the goalie on a drive to the net but was denied at the last minute by the stick of a trailing Martin Necas.
The Hurricanes tied it once again when Jarvis drove down the left side before firing from the top of the left circle to make it 2-2 at 8:07 of the second period.
Slavin gave Carolina a 3-2 lead at 7:53 of the third period when he pinched low in the left circle to direct a Sebastian Aho feed into an open side.
Guentzel scored an empty-net goal at 17:20 and added another at 19:10.
–Field Level Media
