Sports · NEWS EXPLAINER
Hurricanes beat Jets 3–2 for seventh straight as Ehlers scores winner against former team
Carolina erased two Winnipeg leads, scored twice on the power play and received two late saves from Pyotr Kochetkov after Nikolaj Ehlers broke a 2–2 tie.
Carolina defeated Winnipeg 3–2 on October 17 for its seventh consecutive victory. Nikolaj Ehlers scored the winning power-play goal against his former team, while Pyotr Kochetkov made 21 saves and stopped two late attempts to protect the lead.
Winnipeg led twice, and Carolina answered twice
Mark Scheifele opened the scoring 4:23 into the second period. Mark Jankowski tied it on a Carolina power play at 8:19.
Alex Iafallo restored Winnipeg’s lead at 10:59 after a Kochetkov turnover, but Jesperi Kotkaniemi made it 2–2 at 16:50. The score was level entering the third.
Ehlers delivered against his former team
At 6:43 of the third period, Ehlers took a power-play feed from Shayne Gostisbehere and scored with a slap shot for a 3–2 lead. It was Ehlers’s first goal of the season.
Ehlers spent 10 seasons with Winnipeg from 2015 through 2025. NHL.com noted that the goal completed his set of scoring against all 32 current teams.
Special teams created the margin
Carolina converted two power plays: Jankowski’s tying goal and Ehlers’s winner. Winnipeg did not score on its only power-play chance.
The Hurricanes also finished with a 37–23 advantage in shots and won 55.2 percent of faceoffs. Those edges describe sustained pressure, not a claim that every shift belonged to Carolina.
Kochetkov closed the last sequence
Winnipeg pushed with its net empty in the final minute. Kochetkov made two saves inside the last 40 seconds, including a stop on Dylan Samberg, to keep the one-goal lead intact.
Kochetkov finished with 21 saves and won each of his first five starts. Winnipeg’s Thomas Stevenson made 34 saves in the completed game.
What the completed result establishes
Carolina moved to 7–1–1 and won its first five road games of a season for the first time in franchise history. Winnipeg moved to 4–2–2 and took its first regulation loss at home.
The seven-game winning streak and Ehlers’s milestone are completed-game facts. Whether Carolina can extend the streak is a question for its next game, not a conclusion from this result.
