Finally at home, the Hurricanes continued winning, posting a 3-2 victory over Seattle

The Carolina Hurricanes had a home game Thursday.

Repeat: a home game.

After keeping their suitcases packed and handy most of the first 28 games of the season, the Canes finally are back at PNC Arena to play some games.

The Hurricanes (17-6-6) parlayed some strong early play into a 3-2 victory over the Seattle Kraken as goalie Pyotr Kochetkov won for the sixth time in his past seven games.

“I thought we were good the whole game,” Canes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “We didn’t score after we got up three but we were still pretty good the whole game. Solid game, great effort.”

Andrei Svechnikov and Derek Stepan scored in the first period Thursday, and Stefan Noesen converted a penalty shot at 2:08 of the second. The Canes had a 3-0 lead and the Kraken (16-10-3) struggling to get shots on net.

But the Kraken’s Ryan Donato scored on a tip in the second period. Daniel Sprong scored in the third, making it a 3-2 game, and the Canes had to make plays in their zone at the end to seal the win and extend their point streak to nine games.

Takeaways from the game:

▪ It took a tip-in to end Kochetkov’s scoreless streak. After shutouts against the Islanders and Red Wings and a scoreless first period Thursday, Kochetkov had Donato’s deflection get past home at 11:26 of the second, ending his streak at 151:26.

Kochetkov did give up a soft goal to Daniel Sprong in the third on a shot from the right circle.

▪ The first period had to be among the Canes’ best this season. There was a lot of tape-to-tape passing, sharp breakouts, good offensive chances and constant pressure on Kraken goalie Philipp Grubauer. And two goals.

Svechnikov scored his 16th of the season after a turnover in the Kraken zone. Stepan picked up his first on a rush into the zone, Jack Drury with the perfect setup pass. Stepan had two goals disallowed early in the season. This one counted.

“It had seemed the game had kind of disappeared from me, which is a confidence thing,” Stepan said. “If you really start to beat yourself up, it gets worse and there was a stretch where it was for me. It’s good to get one.”

▪ Milestone goal for Stepan, by the way. The veteran forward now has scored against all 32 NHL teams.

▪ Former Canes Tuomo Ruutu once said his strategy on shootout shots was to pick a spot and rip it. Not a lot of thinking. Just let it rip. Noesen appeared to do that on his penalty shot early in the second period, his first in the NHL with a slapshot that beat Grubauer.

“He dropped his glove and I don’t think anybody was going to stop that one,” Noesen said.

▪ Svechnikov had a pretty neat goal-scoring celly. He first cupped his right hand to his ear — a “let’s hear it” move — and then fired a fist into the air.

▪ Strong game by the Canes’ fourth line. Stepan, Noesen and Drury put together some some very solid shifts. Their shift seven minutes into the third was textbook stuff.

“We’ve gotten into a nice little rhythm,” Noesen said. “(Brind’Amour) keeps trusting us and playing us and that’s huge.”

▪ There needs to be a better way. Brind’Amour said he was told by a referee that a high-sticking call against the Canes’ Jesperi Kotkaniemi late in the second period was the wrong call but not reviewable.

“The ref handled it perfectly, in my opinion,” Brind’Amour said. “He knew they messed up. As I’ve said many, many times, that’s why we need a review system because that could have cost us the game. ... For some reason you can only review the four-minute (high-sticking call). Common sense doesn’t add up. When we can see it that quickly, there’s got to be a better way to do this. We’re in an age now where we want to get it right.”

▪ Another vintage Jaccob Slavin defensive game. All over the ice making the plays for the Canes.