Carolina Hurricanes’ ‘pack of wolves’ penalty killers again among NHL’s best

A year ago, Carolina Hurricanes forward Seth Jarvis spent a total of 13 minutes killing penalties, about as long as it takes him to gobble down his lunch before his afternoon nap.

This season: Jarvis has almost 107 shorthanded minutes in 54 games.

“I love it,” Jarvis said.

He’s also good at it.

So are the Hurricanes, third in the NHL at 84.9%. After going 4-for-4 on the kill Friday in a 5-1 road win over the Arizona Coyotes, the Canes were 2-for-2 against the Vegas Golden Knights in a 3-1 victory Saturday as Jarvis scored his first shorthanded goal of the season for the game-winner.

Why so good?

“Effort, hard work and then a lot of pressure,” Jarvis said this week of the PK. “What ‘Gleas’ preaches the most is effort, caring, outworking the power play, a lot of pressure and making them uncomfortable.”

That would be assistant coach Tim Gleason. A tough, aggressive penalty killer when he played for the Hurricanes, the former defenseman heads up the PK units.

The Canes allowed 10 power-play goals in the first seven games this season as they stumbled to a 3-4-0 start. The Colorado Avalanche had three in a 6-4 win.

But since that Oct. 21 road game in Denver, the Canes have given up more than one power-play goal in a game only twice – four against Tampa Bay in an 8-2 loss on Nov. 24, and more recently two against Vancouver in a 3-2 loss at PNC Arena.

Of note: Canes penalty killers were 6-for-6 in a 5-2 win over Colorado in the next game after the Canucks loss.

“It didn’t go so well at the beginning of the year, but we came together as a group,” Gleason said in an N&O interview. “It’s about your mentality. Once the penalty is called, get your minds right, right away. Don’t sit there saying, ‘Oh, we had a bad shift there and now we’re down a man.’ It’s about what’s happening next.

“I think the guys have really bought into it. They’re hungry. When we see blood we want to say, ‘Hey, we’ve got a chance to kill this penalty and build momentum as a team.’ That’s key, and these guys are working their tails off.”

Gleason likened penalty killing units to a “pack of wolves.” It’s usually a four-man pack and everybody has to do their part and move as one or the group can fail.

“Again, it’s all about our mentality,” he said. “They want to outwork us and we need to outwork them.”

Sometimes, that might mean getting in front of a nasty Alex Ovechkin one-timer, turning your head and bracing for the pain to come.

“You’ve got to be pretty fearless at times,” defenseman Brady Skjei said.

Skjei, who again has put in a lot of penalty-killing minutes and has blocked 15 shots, said the Canes did not alter their PK approach or strategy after the early season problems.

“We really haven’t changed our system,” he said. “There were a few goals we gave up that were unlucky bounces here and there and maybe some others we’d like to have back. But I really think it was more about bad luck than the system.

“And the other team has good players and you have one less guy, so it is difficult. But we’ve been at it the same way the past few years and we’ve done a good job.”

True enough. Carolina was second in the NHL in penalty killing last season (84.4%), led the league in 2021-22 (88%) and was third in 2020-21 (85.2%)

The Canes have kept some continuity with their units, which always helps, with such players as Skjei, Jaccob Slavin, Brent Burns, Brett Pesce, Jordan Staal and now Jarvis having a good feel for each other and how they will react.

Staal, always a PK workhorse in his career, has 112 minutes of penalty-killing time in 54 games. That’s just five minutes more than Jarvis, who is being used with Staal and given the chance to get more ice time in his third NHL season.

“I love killing penalties and as much as I can play that’s what I want to do,” Jarvis said.

The Canes and Golden Knights were tied 1-1 Saturday entering the third period and Carolina on the kill after a Andrei Svechnikov high-sticking call late in the second. Jarvis quickly hopped on a turnover at the blue line and skated in to beat Adin Hill, going backhand to forehand for the goal at 19 seconds of the period.

“Just using my speed. I almost fell going to the net but was able to keep it together and made a move,” Jarvis said.

Sebastian Aho and Teuvo Teravainen both have had about 87 minutes of PK time (Aho in 51 games). It’s a tandem the Canes turned to a few years back and adds an offensive component to the penalty kill.

Aho. always a threat to go, has 11 shorthanded shots and one goal this season on the PK, and 17 shorthanded scores in his career.

“He’s really good at it. I’m working on it,” Jarvis said, smiling.

Gleason said Teravainen brings more of a “defensive-mind element.” Aho, he said, “has that little extra gear” that allows him to get down the ice when shorthanded chances materialize.

“That pairing gets a lot of opportunities offensively, but it comes down to those two doing it properly and doing it right,” Gleason said of their PK work.

The Canes have been doing a lot of things right in the regular season. The effort has been there and the execution.

“They’re in sync and they certainly work hard,” Canes coach Rod Brind’Amour said after the win at Vegas. “It helps to be on the same page and really dialed in.

“They take a lot of pride in that. I think they understand how important it is, especially lately when it’s the game. The games are tight and we’re not getting a lot of power plays, so it’s like we’ve got to kill these. So we’ve done a real nice job with that.”