Mark Jankowski continued his hot start with his new team by scoring twice as the Carolina Hurricanes extended their winning streak to seven games with a crisp 5-0 road victory over the Philadelphia Flyers.
Since a stretch of six losses in eight games, Carolina has held seven straight opponents to two goals or fewer. Pyotr Kochetkov did the heavy lifting in this one, turning aside 26 shots, including a sparkling sequence in the first period in which he denied Ryan Poehling before getting his toe on a shot by Bobby Brink.
Taylor Hall and Sebastian Aho each chipped in a goal and an assist for the Hurricanes while Eric Robinson and former Flyers defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere each registered a pair of assists.
Samuel Ersson made 26 saves for Philadelphia, which wrapped up its homestand with a disappointing 1-6-0 record. The Flyers now embark on a five-game road trip that includes challenging matchups in Washington, Dallas and Toronto.
Aho opened the scoring about 8 1/2 minutes into the contest. Ersson stopped a shot by Jackson Blake, but Philadelphia’s Travis Konecny lost control of the rebound to set up Aho for his 25th of the season.
Jankowski made it 2-0 at the 15:46 mark of the first. Ersson directed Robinson’s seemingly harmless backhander to the right, but Jankowski was right there to bury the rebound.
The first 20 seconds of the second period were action-packed as Philadelphia took a penalty 10 seconds into the session before Hall rammed home a rebound nine seconds later.
Later in the period, Jankowski made it 4-0 when he got a half-step on the Flyers’ defense and drilled a shot off the left post and in. Jankowski has four goals in four games with the Hurricanes after totaling four goals in 41 games for the Nashville Predators earlier this season.
Rookie defenseman Scott Morrow scored his first NHL goal in the final minute of the game to put an exclamation point on the victory.