Hurricanes' Nedeljkovic beats Canucks in first start

Nino Niederreiter scored twice, and Teuvo Teravainen tallied three points to help goaltender Alex Nedeljkovic win his first NHL start as the visiting Carolina Hurricanes used a five-goal second period to beat the Vancouver Canucks 5-2 on Wednesday night. Nedeljkovic, Carolina's 2014 second-round draft choice, stopped 24 shots for the win. The Hurricanes, who last won in Vancouver on Oct. 15, 1999, and had lost their last 10 visits, finished 2-0-1 on a road trip through Western Canada.

After a scoreless first period, Niederreiter put the Hurricanes on the board 1:54 into the middle frame with a power-play goal. The Canucks responded twice in less than four minutes to take a 2-1 lead. Josh Leivo tied the game 63 seconds after Niederreiter's goal with a long-redirection for his ninth goal of the season. Then Sven Baertschi collected his eighth goal by finishing a tic-tac-toe passing play at the 5:14 mark.

It was all Hurricanes the rest of the period. Greg McKegg evened the score at 6:53 when he buried a chance set up by Dougie Hamilton -- who intercepted a poor clearing attempt to start the play. Niederreiter notched his second of the game and 13th of the season at 13:17 by first winning a board battle and then playing give-and-go with Sebastian Aho before one-timing a shot.

Hamilton made it a 4-2 game 25 seconds later when he wisely pinched from his point position to receive a pass from Teravainen and one-timed a top-shelf rocket to pot his eighth goal of the season. Finally, Teravainen netted a goal of his own at 16:32 to cap the five-goal period, finishing a give-and-go with McKegg by firing a rocket from near the left faceoff dot.

McKegg, Hamilton and Aho all posted two-point games. Goalie Jacob Markstrom made 29 saves for the Canucks, who went into the game on a 3-0-2 run.

--Field Level Media

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