HELSINKI (AP) — Sebastian Aho scored twice in front of the home crowd and the Carolina Hurricanes opened the NHL’s Global Series in the Finnish capital with a 4-1 victory over the Seattle Kraken on Thursday.
Left winger Taylor Hall celebrated his 1,000th NHL game in the reigning Stanley Cup champions’ victorious return to Helsinki’s Veikkaus Arena after 16 years.
Carolina’s Brandon Bussi stopped 12 shots.
Nikolaj Ehlers had a goal and an assist, and Aho’s fellow Finn, defenseman Juuso Välimäki, also scored for the Hurricanes (15-3-2) who have won seven of their last eight games.
Logan Stankoven had two assists to extend his point streak to six and Jackson Blake got one to improve his career-high point streak to 10.
The dominant Hurricanes jumped to a 2-0 with the goals coming just 1:06 apart in the opening period.
Ehlers put them 1-0 up with 8:16 remaining with a wrist shot from the blue line. Home crowd hero Aho doubled the advantage on a power play moments later after he was fed at the side of the net by Blake. He made it 4-0 on a one-timer from the slot in the final period.
The Finnish scoring leader for the Hurricanes has three goals and seven points in the last three games. With his 321st career goal, Aho tied Olli Jokinen for the fourth place among Finnish players in NHL history.
Frederick Gaudreau scored the lone goal for Seattle (9-7-1) and Philipp Grubauer finished with 26 saves.
The 34-year-old Hall became the first player to skate his 1,000th game overseas. In his 17th NHL season, Hall has 305 goals and 488 assists for a total of 793 points.
The NHL has played games on the European continent as part of its efforts to grow the fan base in hockey-mad countries like Finland, Sweden and the Czech Republic. Thursday’s game was the 49th regular-season game outside North America, 12th in Finland and eighth in Helsinki. Only Stockholm and Prague have hosted more.
It was the first regular-season game outside North America for the Kraken, who became the 27th active franchise to do so.
Up next
The Hurricanes and Kraken will complete their two-game series in Helsinki on Saturday.
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