The Carolina Hurricanes have now played 5 games without Justin Faulk in the lineup. The team is an impressive 3-1-1 in those games. The biggest story is 21-year old Jaccob Slavin being the latest in a long string of great stories from the Canes young blue line this season. Slavin stepped right into Faulk’s slot next to Ron Hainsey and that pairing has not missed a beat. It started with a bang with a back-to-back set of Sidney Crosby and John Tavares, and Slavin (with help from solid play from veteran Ron Hainsey) passed with flying colors. The Canes did benefit from 4 of those 5 games being at home where Coaches Bill Peters and Steve Smith could pick and choose match ups to their liking. Regardless, what the level of play from the Canes blue line minus its leader Justin Faulk has been impressive and a big reason why the team is still playing games that matter.

Justin Faulk could be back as early as Sunday against Tampa Bay (might get indication coming out of the morning skate) which makes the defense 1 deeper on D and puts it upon Coach Bill Peters to figure out where to insert him into the lineup. The simplest answer would be to put Faulk back with Hainsey, probably leave Liles and Pesce together and reunite Slavin and Hanifin who have some run time together and have been pretty good.

There is nothing wrong with that approach, but I think there is a chance that Peters will go a bit outside the box at least for a short look and pair Faulk with Hanifin.

I base my outlandish hunch on 4 factors:

1) Faulk has been out for about 10 days now, so it might take him a tiny bit of time to shake off the rust especially in terms of getting back up to a 24-25-minute pace.

2) “If it aint’ broke, don’t fix it.” This might sound strange, but in terms of pure defense, the past 5 games of Hainsey playing with Slavin have been as good as Hainsey with Faulk. It is a small sample size, so I would not mark it in pen for the rest of the season or anything drastic, but it might make sense to just run with while it is working and watch it game to game.

3) With a road-heavy March schedule, the Canes will want as much balance as possible across the 3 defense pairs, so there are no weak links to be picked on when the opposing coaches are better able to dictate match ups.

4) If you balance minutes fairly evenly at even strength and get Faulk back on special teams (at least the power play for sure), it should be fairly easy to get Faulk to 20+ minutes regardless of which number pairing he plays on.

 

And as a bonus, without jeopardizing the good thing that the Canes have going right now, it could be a chance to scout a Hanifin/Faulk pairing for both now and the future. How fun would that be even just for a few games?

Again, the aim is not to try to come up with some permanent set of defense pairs. It is simply a way to ease Faulk back into the lineup and ride the momentum of what is working right now. Peters can monitor Faulk’s rust/readiness and also how the other pairs are working and boost Faulk higher in the pecking order and minutes at any point even mid-game, but just maybe he re-enters the lineup in a more understated slot at least temporarily.

 

Go Canes!

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