Foegele had a goal and an assist in his first game, and the Carolina Hurricanes beat the Ottawa Senators 4-1 on Monday night.
”It took me (until) about the third shift to realize it was just another hockey game,” Foegele said, repeatedly calling it ”a surreal moment.”
Brock McGinn and Valentin Zykov scored 98 seconds apart in the second period, Sebastian Aho had an empty-netter with 1:59 remaining and Derek Ryan had two assists to help the Hurricanes win their third straight.
Carolina – still a serious longshot to make the playoffs for the first time since 2009 – moved within seven points of idle New Jersey for the eighth postseason spot in the East with six games left.
The most inexperienced of the Hurricanes played key roles in this one, and not just Foegele. It was the sixth career game for both Zykov and defenseman Roland McKeown – who was on the ice for each of Carolina’s first three goals.
”They can come in here and instill that youth and energy and vigor, and I think they’ve shown that,” Ryan said. ”They’ve done that so far, and it’s fun to have that kind of the smiles on their faces, to see Warren score his first goal in his first game and smile on the bench, he’s excited and it kind of makes me relive those memories for myself.”
Bobby Ryan scored and Craig Anderson stopped 26 shots for the Senators http://www.cowboysauthorizedshops.com/authentic-leighton-vander-esch-jersey , who lost their fifth straight and have been outscored 22-7 in their last four. The Hurricanes beat them twice in three nights by a combined 9-3 score.
”You can look down the lineup, we’re plugging in guys to see where they fit, and trying different players here and there,” Anderson said. ”As long as the compete level’s there, you can’t fault anybody, and that’s how it was tonight. We came out, we competed and just weren’t able to get the win.”
Cam Ward made 19 saves for Carolina, which recalled Foegele from its AHL affiliate in Charlotte during a day off Sunday.
Both of his shots resulted in goals.
His first career goal came with 1:08 left in the first when he skated up the end line and slipped the puck between Anderson’s glove and the post.
”The best advice I got was to just shoot it on net,” Foegele said. ”So I shot it, and it just went in.”
He assisted on Zykov’s go-ahead goal with 5:22 left in the second, with the physical Russian forward poking in the rebound of Foegele’s shot to make it 2-1.
McGinn then cashed in on an Ottawa turnover Youth Luke Falk Jersey , taking a pass from Jordan Staal and whipping in a shot from between the circles to make it a two-goal game with 3:44 left.
NOTES: Aho has a point in nine straight games. … Ward improved to 10-1-2 in his last 13 against the Senators. … Zykov has six points in six career games. … Ottawa C Matt Duchene, who assisted on Bobby Ryan’s goal, has 20 points (10 goals, 10 assists) in his last 21 games. … Ottawa D Erik Karlsson didn’t make the trip. Karlsson and his wife announced last week that their son Axel had been born stillborn.
UP NEXT
Senators: Return home to face the New York Islanders on Tuesday night.
Hurricanes: Visit New Jersey on Tuesday night.
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More NHL hockey: Several prominent players across the NFL have skipped mandatory minicamps this week, subjecting themselves to team fines out of concern for their contract status in a league where so little is guaranteed.
Everyone is accounted for in Minnesota, where good vibes from the top of the organization to the bottom of the roster can only help the Vikings in their attempt to better their NFC championship game appearance from last season.
”All these guys, they like to be around each other. So I think that’s part of it,” coach Mike Zimmer said. ”We’ve got a lot of really good guys on this football team who care about not just them, but they care about each other. It’s kind of just the way we do things.”
Savvy salary cap management steered by executive vice president of football operations Rob Brzezinski has allowed the Vikings to put the majority of their stars in mutually beneficial multi-year deals, but outside linebacker Anthony Barr, wide receiver Stefon Diggs and defensive end Danielle Hunter have all entered 2018 on expiring contracts that must be addressed soon unless the Vikings are willing to let them become free agents and potentially price the club out on the open market.
Still Yonder Alonso Jersey , all three of them have been practicing with the team this week, clearly confident enough in their future earnings to opt for full participation over mild protest. Barr, for his part, missed one week of organized team activities last month, an absence he said was to secure an insurance policy in case of a severe injury that would derail the value of his next deal. He said recently his hope was to have a new contract in place by the beginning of on-field workouts in May, but that’s the closest anyone has come to even hinting about dissatisfaction.
Barr is among the 2014 first-round draft picks who’ve reached their first career crossroad, playing the fifth option year that the majority of teams have exercised for cost control. Then there are the post-first round 2015 picks such as Hunter and Diggs who’ve entered the fourth season of their rookie deals.
Pittsburgh Steelers running back Le’Veon Bell, Los Angeles Rams defensive tackle Aaron Donald, Arizona Cardinals running back David Johnson, Atlanta Falcons wide receiver Julio Jones, Tennessee Titans left tackle Taylor Lewan and Oakland Raiders defensive end Khalil Mack have created headlines around the league for staying home this week from minicamp.
”My job is to come in to work Jim Kelly Bills Jersey , just like you come in to work the same way,” Hunter said. ”My job is to come in and get on this field and play football.”
Clearly, he’s been listening to the head coach, as have many of his teammates.
”That’s one thing Zim has taught us since he’s been here: No one player is more important than the team,” Hunter said. ”So I guess that kind of grew into the program. The team is way bigger than one person. In order to help the team, you’ve got to do your job. And we want to be great. We want to be where we need to be. Last year, it wasn’t close to that, so we’ve got to work for that again.”
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