SALT LAKE CITY — Nick Bjugstad scored his second goal of the game to cap the Utah Hockey Club’s three-goal flurry in a 2 1/2-minute span of the third period in a 4-1 victory over the Carolina Hurricanes on Wednesday night.
Jack McBain and Mikhail Sergachev also scored for Utah, which won at home after losing three of four on the road. Michael Kesselring had two assists and Karel Vejmelka had a career-high 49 saves to get his first win in five games.
Martin Necas scored for Carolina, which lost for just the second time in 11 games and ended a streak of nine straight games with at least four goals. Pyotr Kochetkov gave up three goals on 18 shots before he was replaced after giving up Sergachev’s goal that made it 3-1 at 7:11 of the third period. Spencer Martin stopped two of the three shots he faced.
Vejmelka had 15 saves in the first period, 16 in the second and 18 in the third.
McBain started the outburst at 5:09 of the third, and Bjugstad capped it 17 seconds after Martin came on.
Bjugstad got Utah on the scoreboard first with 2:05 left in the first period with his first goal of the season and 150th of his career. Necas tied it with a power-play goal midway through the second.
Hurricanes: Carolina scored 44 goals in their previous nine games, found it tougher in Utah despite a 50-21 advantage in shots on goal.
Utah: After a road trip where Utah went 1-2-1, the team got a four-day break – the longest of the season so far — but the Hurricanes consistently beat the home team to the puck and created nearly double the scoring chances until the third period.
Just 22 seconds after McBain’s score, Lawson Krause hit the crossbar on a shot that was initially ruled a goal. After the review took the score off the board, Sergachev drove home his goal and Bjugstad added his all.
Utah improved to 5-0-2 when scoring first.
Utah hosts Vegas on Friday, and Hurricanes host Ottawa on Saturday.
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AP NHL: https://www.apnews.com/hub/NHL
