Raanta, Hurricanes shut out Blackhawks for 9th straight win

The Carolina Hurricanes won their ninth straight and extended their point streak to 15 games with a 3-0 win against the Chicago Blackhawks at PNC Arena in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Tuesday.

The Hurricanes are 13-0-2 in the run, tying the Toronto Maple Leafs (12-0-3) for the longest point streak in the NHL this season.

Their winning streak also tied a franchise record, which has been accomplished four times, the most recent from Oct. 14-Nov. 3, 2021, and tied the Vegas Golden Knights for the second-longest this season behind the New Jersey Devils (13).

“Like we said this morning, you never really look behind, whether you’ve won 8-9 in a row or you lost eight,” Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “It’s ‘What have you done for me lately?’ What’s important is right in front of you. Those are the kinds of things you probably look back on and reflect on. It doesn’t really matter much right now. It will probably mean more at the end of the year when we look back and [say], ‘That was a good stretch and got us to hopefully where we want to be.'”

Video: CHI@CAR: Martinook sends the loose puck home

Antti Raanta made 24 saves for his first shutout of the season and 16th in the NHL for the Hurricanes (23-6-6), who shut out the Blackhawks 3-0 Nov. 14 in Chicago.

“Obviously, there have been a few games this year where you felt you haven’t been able to make those key saves,” Raanta said. “And there have been too many goals where you’ve been like, ‘Oh, no, why did I do that?’ I think that comes with too much thinking and too much worrying about something now.

“The mentality today was you wanted to stay more in the moment, just worry about what’s going to happen next, not worry about what happened two minutes ago or what’s going to happen in five minutes. Big team win, and it’s always nice to keep the clean sheet.”

Petr Mrazek made an NHL career-high 46 saves for the Blackhawks (8-21-4), who have lost nine of 10.

“It’s a little frustrating not to get enough offense to give Petr some scoring support he needs,” Chicago coach Luke Richardson said. “I think we’ve got to be cleaner. Most of those shots were in the first period. I don’t know if there’s much we could have done better than just be a little sharper with our breakouts with the puck in the first period. I think that was pretty much the game right there.”

Video: Raanta saves all 24 shots on goal for shutout

Martin Necas made it 1-0 at 3:36 of the first period when he backhanded the rebound of a shot by Brent Burns from the right point.

Jesper Fast made it 2-0 at 8:53 after a face-off win by Jordan Staal. Fast picked up the rebound in the right circle of a shot by Brett Pesce and his pass to Staal in front deflected into the net off the skate of Chicago defenseman Connor Murphy.

The Hurricanes outshot the Blackhawks 23-7 in the first period, the most shots it has had in a period this season, and 49-24 overall.

Chicago opened the second period on a power play and had a 5-on-3 advantage for 21 seconds when…