New Jersey Devils at Carolina Hurricanes

Aho and Teravainen lead surging Hurricanes to 3-2 win over Devils. Ruff hit in face by puck

New Jersey coach Lindy Ruff was struck in the face by a puck with about 6 1/2 minutes left in the second period. He stayed behind the bench initially, but didn’t come out for the third. Associate coach Travis Green ran the team the rest of the way.

“Just wasn’t feeling right, but seems a little better right now than he was after the second, so that was great to see,” Green said.

With 858 career regular-season wins, Ruff ranks fourth all-time among NHL coaches. He has coached the fourth-most games during the regular season in Devils history (266).

“You never like to see what happened out there,” Green said. “Obviously, it happens once in a while.”

Jordan Staal also scored for the Hurricanes, who have won three of four. Antti Raanta made 23 saves.

Justin Dowling and Jesper Bratt scored New Jersey’s goals in the third period. Dowling was making his Devils debut in his first NHL game this season.

Devils goalie Nico Daws was pulled after Carolina’s third goal early in the second period. He stopped nine of 12 shots before Vitek Vanecek made 11 saves in relief.

“I didn’t think we were great, but we got up,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “Made a couple of nice plays and kind of just hung around and that was good enough.”

The Hurricanes, who won a night earlier at Boston, are 10-2-1 since Christmas.

Fans were chanting Raanta’s name when the game ended.

“You know you did something right in the game to get that kind of ovation,” Raanta said. “You battle through the game and then hope to hear good words afterwards from the fans.”

It was the first meeting between the teams since Carolina won their second-round playoff series in five games last spring.

Aho opened the scoring with his team-leading 17th goal just 90 seconds into the game. He skated in from the blue line and beat Daws with a shot.

Carolina’s second goal came 2:54 into the second, with Teravainen converting off the initial faceoff of the Hurricanes’ first power play of the game. Staal’s first goal in 14 games came 25 seconds later on a tip-in.

“It’s nice obviously to get on the scoreboard and contribute that way,” Staal said.

Dowling made an immediate impact for the Devils, applying pressure near the net in the first period and converting 5:25 into the third.

“The hard work you put into it, it’s nice to get rewarded every once in a while,” he said.

Bratt’s 18th goal came with 2.3 seconds left when New Jersey was using an extra attacker.

In the second period, it took nearly 12 minutes before the Devils recorded a shot on goal. The Hurricanes had four shots in the third period.

UP NEXT

Devils: At Tampa Bay on Saturday.

Hurricanes: Host Arizona on Saturday.

CAR leads series 1-0