RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - Eddie Lack spent a lot of time this season watching his Carolina Hurricanes teammates play while he dealt with concussion issues. He made the most of a rare chance to play against the Ottawa Senators.
Lack, making his sixth start of the season, stopped 34 shots for his ninth career shutout to lead the Hurricanes to a 3-0 victory over the Senators on Friday night.
Jordan Staal, Elias Lindholm and Viktor Stalberg scored, and Phillip Di Giuseppe had two assists to help Carolina snap a five-game losing streak (0-4-1) and move out of last place in the Eastern Conference.
“I thought the guys were aggressive attacking the net,” Carolina coach Bill Peters said. “We haven’t had a chance to play (Lack) much due to his injuries and everything else. We’ve got to get him going. I thought he did a great job here tonight and took advantage of his opportunity.”
The Hurricanes set the tone by getting a quick goal from Staal and outshooting the visitors 19-7 in the first period.
“I felt like we were controlling from the start,” said Lack (2-3-1), who got his first win in four tries against Ottawa. “Like 10 or 12 shots the first eight minutes. The boys came out flying and I just had to be big when I had to. It was a good night for us.”
Craig Anderson finished with 41 saves for Ottawa, which snapped a three-game road winning streak. The Senators squandered a chance to move into first place in the Atlantic Division.
“(Carolina) came out really hard and we were really expecting that, so there’s no excuse,” Ottawa coach Guy Boucher said. “There’s no reason we shouldn’t be ready for their surge in the first period, and we were just not there. We were just not good at all.”
Ottawa captain Erik Karlsson moved past Kyle Turris into sole possession of second place on the franchise’s consecutive games played list with 308.
Ottawa had won the teams’ first two meetings this season at home, 2-1 in overtime on Nov. 1 and 2-1 on Nov. 26.
Staal put Carolina ahead just 1:19 into the contest, skating from the left corner for a wraparound shot past Anderson for his 12th of the season.
“(Di Giuseppe) and (Brock McGinn) are both hard-working guys who skate really well and can create plays when they had the opportunity,” Staal said. “We’ve been talking about getting to the net more. We’ve been creating a lot of good looks from the outside, but there are a lot of ’grease’ goals around the league just around the net, and I thought we did a better job crashing a little bit more.”
Ottawa outshot the Hurricanes 17-14 in the second, but gave up two more goals.
Lindholm made it 2-0 with 4:44 remaining in the middle period as he took a pass across the crease from Di Giuseppe and beat Anderson stick side.
It went to 3-0 with 42 secons left when Stalberg followed Sebastian Aho’s shot from the left circle and beat Anderson stick side. Victor Rask had the secondary assist, getting his 20th of the season and breaking a 14-game scoreless streak.
NOTES: The Hurricanes are 18-8-2 at home this season. … This was just the second time in eight seasons that Ottawa won the season series against Carolina. … Ottawa C Mike Hoffman (groin) and RW Mark Stone (neck) each missed his second straight game while D Fredrik Claesson was a healthy scratch. … C Derek Ryan and D Matt Tennyson were healthy scratches for Carolina.
UP NEXT
Senators: At Florida on Sunday in the third game of a four-game road trip.
Hurricanes: Host Calgary on Sunday in the finale of their five-game homestand.
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