Gibson leads Hurricanes to season sweep of Columbus

RALEIGH, NC – Four second period goals were enough for the Carolina Hurricanes to fend off the Columbus Blue Jackets for a 4-3 victory Wednesday night at PNC Arena.

The Jackets took a 2-0 first period lead on two power play goals from defensemen Justin Schultz (12) and Dougie Hamilton (9) to strike early on Carolina goaltender John Gibson, who was forced into an emergency start after Ryan Miller appeared to suffer a lower body injury during the pregame warmups. The Hurricanes responded in the second with two even-strength goals from Robby Fabbri (12) and Jay Beagle (5) and two power play goals from Justin Abdelkader (9) and captain Joe Pavelski (33).

"Gibby was huge for us tonight in a tough spot," said Carolina head coach Lindy Ruff. For Gibson, it was his second start in as many nights after manning the nets against the Buffalo Sabres just a night ago. "Fortunately last night wasn't too taxing for him, so we weren't too concerned about fatigue and he was on his game tonight."

Gibson stopped 37 of 40 shots faced and added an assist with a long pass up to Pavelski during a Columbus line change, which set up Abdelkader's goal. "I didn't even make one of the 'Three Stars' tonight?" he asked with a cheeky grin.

Ruff said Miller is day-to-day but Jon Gillies is expected to be recalled from the Charlotte Checkers on Thursday for the upcoming games in Toronto and Nashville.

Columbus has been one of the hottest teams in the EHE over the past two months, having won 19 of their last 25 games. Yet, three of their six losses in that span have come to their divisional foes, the Hurricanes.

"Honestly I didn't even know we swept them this season," said Beagle, who has scored on back-to-back nights. "It's nice but it really only means something if we do it again in the playoffs."

The win moves the Canes five points ahead of the Jackets in the Metropolitan division in what could ultimately be a first-round playoff matchup. Each team has 16 regular season games remaining.

"We didn't do our part against the [Philadelphia] Flyers this season and we haven't been able to catch them because of it," Ruff said of the divisional standings. "We need every one of these wins to fend off the pack and that starts with Columbus."

Deadline Looming

With the trade deadline looming on Sunday at 2 P.M. ET, Hurricanes general manager Kevin Lacy still has not ruled out adding reinforcements.

"We have a couple of moves on the table but we'll just see what happens," Lacy said. "We already added [Pierre-Edouard] Bellemare and [Nikolay] Kulemin earlier in the year and I'm quite happy with how the team has performed the past 30 games or so."

Bellemare and defenseman Johnny Boychuk remain on injured reserve but may be ready to return to the lineup when the Canes come home from their road trip next week.

Hey, Hey, What Do You Say?

Hurricanes color commentator Tripp Tracy was pulled from the broadcast and dressed as their emergency netminder following the injury to Miller.

"I got to double the number of NHL games I dressed in and I've been retired for 20 years!" Tracy proclaimed.