The Carolina Hurricanes will aim to extend their three-game winning streak Sunday night when they visit the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The Hurricanes completed a sweep of their two-game homestand Saturday with a 6-3 victory over the Buffalo Sabres.
Toronto will finish a four-game homestand on Sunday after seeing its three-game winning streak halted with a 5-3 loss to the Boston Bruins on Saturday.
The Maple Leafs also will wrap up a stretch of 12 of 16 games at home to open their season. The team is 7-3-1 on home ice.
Toronto again was loose defensively, and starting goaltender Anthony Stolarz was removed in the second period and replaced by Dennis Hildeby after Boston’s fourth goal.
“I thought we didn’t execute well enough with the puck early on,” Maple Leafs coach Craig Berube said. “I think we all have to be better, including the goalie. … We didn’t execute well enough, and for me, we caused all those goals ourselves.”
Berube said he likely will wait until Sunday before making the call on his starting goaltender against the Hurricanes.
“(Hildeby) was awesome,” Stolarz said. “I put him in a bad situation, but he came in, handled it like a true pro and played well.”
Stolarz allowed four goals on 19 shots, and Hildeby yielded one goal on 20 shots.
Scott Laughton, who was playing his second game following offseason surgery for a lower-body injury, did not play in the third period on Saturday because of an upper-body injury. He won’t play on Sunday.
“I don’t think we’re in a horrible spot,” said John Tavares, who scored a goal for Toronto. “But certainly I don’t think we’ve maintained the level of play that we expect, and what our standard is, we’re not as consistent as we’d like to be at the start of the season. No reason for panic.”
Carolina scored two empty-net goals to subdue the Sabres, who had cut the lead to 4-3 in the third period.
“I thought it was a solid first two periods; we were really playing well,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “We didn’t give up a ton.”
After Carolina took a 4-1 lead early in the third, however, Buffalo made the game close.
“It was kind of like you were waiting for it to happen,” Brind’Amour said. “They’re down a few, they can just start winging it, and I think that’s when they get real dangerous, as you see. There’s some really high-end players over there. But I did like our last couple of shifts. I thought that was good shutdown.”
Carolina rookie defensemen Charles Alexis Legault (goal, assist) and Joel Nystrom (assist) each recorded their first NHL point on Saturday.
“We don’t judge their games based on that, but those are nice little bonuses for them,” Brind’Amour said. “Both guys have been solid, right? Like I’ve said, we’ve asked a lot of them, throwing them in there for so many minutes against top, top-end players, and I think all three of them – (defenseman Alexander) Nikishin’s in the same boat for me — they’re all new to the league, and they’re hanging in there.”
Forwards Eric Robinson (upper body) and William Carrier (lower body) returned to Carolina’s lineup on Saturday after being out since Oct. 23. Robinson scored Carolina’s fourth goal of the game.
