RALEIGH, N.C. — On a snowy day in the Triangle, another sheet of ice provided some heated action.

The Carolina Hurricanes and Los Angeles Kings went at it Sunday at the Lenovo Center in a game decided more on hustle, grit, defense and goaltending than speedy transition plays or dazzling individual moves.

It took overtime to decide it.

Sebastian Aho’s goal at 1:25 of the OT lifted the Canes to a 3-2 victory. The Canes never gave up possession of the puck in overtime, Seth Jarvis nearly ended it and Aho then did with his 18th career OT goal.

A day after a dismal overtime road loss to the Washington Capitals, when the Canes couldn’t hold a three-goal lead, they had a two-goal lead slip away against the Kings in the final seven minutes of regulation. But they extended their point streak to eight games with two games remaining before the Olympic break.

“Obviously yesterday’s game was not good enough and we lost the game, as well, so it was a good bounceback, and it feels good to win this one at home,” Aho said.

Goaltender Brandon Bussi again was the winner in net, as he has been in 21 of his 25 games, facing just 13 shots as the Canes (34-15-6) were active in their defensive zone. Kings goalie Anton Forsberg saw a lot more action, facing 34 shots and seeing 17 more attempts that zipped past the cage.

“That was a great 60-minute plus effort by us,” Bussi said. “We did a great job of kind of slowing down what they’re good at and taking away a lot of their chances. They were a little opportunistic at the end of the third but overall it was a great game of us.”

Jordan Staal’s power-play goal in the first period staked the Canes to a 1-0 lead that would carry into the third period.

Staal won the faceoff to start the power play, then went to the net to redirect a shot by Andrei Svechnikov for his 13th goal of the season at 6:25 of the period. That took four seconds.

With Bussi and Forsberg both dialed in, there was no further scoring until Alexander Niksihin’s goal made it a 2-0 game with 7:03 left in regulation. Nikshin ripped one past Forsberg after Jackson Blake’s nifty stickhandling, the puck popping free and the defenseman unloading.

Twenty-four seconds later, it was a one-goal game again as center Samuel Helenius finally beat Bussi, the Kings’ fourth line scoring on the bump-up shift. The Kings then tied it with 3:11 left in regulation on a Quinton Byfield goal.

“I thought we were playing a perfect game, exactly how we wanted to do it,” Canes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “I thought we had the better looks. Obviously, we were in a good spot and they got a couple.

“But I loved the way we just kept playing. I thought it was a great game by us.”

The game began with Canes winger Jordan Martinook crunching defenseman Mikey Anderson into the boards – Anderson soon leaving the game and not returning. The second period began with Martinook dropping the gloves for a go with Corey Perry in more of a wrestling match of two veterans than a fist-throwing fight.

There would be near fights. Blake took umbrage with Joel Edmundson sending him sprawling into and over Forsberg, then putting a cross-check in his back after he fell. Blake quickly hopped up, going face to face with the big D-man.

Nor was Martinook through. He tangled with defenseman Brandt Clarke late in the second period, both drawing roughing penalties.

This was a game of little open ice and two teams trying to make plays in tight spaces. The Kings had four shots in each of the first two periods, although Bussi did make a timely stop on Adrian Kempe in the second.

In the first period, Kings captain Anze Kopitar got behind the defense and had a partial breakaway. But Jarvis hustled back to knock the puck away on the back check to deny him.

“I was ready for it. Maybe next time ‘Jarv’ will let me have the save,” Bussi said, smiling, “I mean, that’s what we were doing all night. Even if we did get caught out of position the extra effort was there. Our ability to get stick on pucks in crucial areas, from our D corps to our forwards, the effort was there.”

Forsberg, who once played a few games for the Canes, did all he could. He made a key stop on Tayor Hall in the second period, then survived a wild sequence later in the second that had Aho, Svechnikov and Jarvis looking at a lot of net but unable to find it while Kings defenseman Drew Doughty gave his goalie support in the crease.

The Canes had 15 scoring chances in the second period, including eight high-danger chances, but could not add to the 1-0 lead as Forsberg stayed calm in net.

The Kings (23-17-14), in a wild-card playoff position in the Western Conference, played Saturday in Philadelphia. With a 3-2 win over the Flyers, they had a 3-1 record on their five-game road trip heading to Raleigh.

Despite the snowy conditions, a large crowd gathered at Lenovo to see it.

“Hopefully we can put on an entertaining game for them,” Brind’Amour said before the game.

The Canes did that. It just took a while and some overtime.

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