Through four games in the 2019-20 NHL season, the Carolina Hurricanes are a perfect 4-0 for the first time since landing in North Carolina. The team is playing well obviously, and though the Canes will obviously not go 82-0, I do think the strong start is an indicator of the quality of the team. At a high level, what stands out most are two things. First, the team has a newfound ‘can do’ attitude that was missing for most of the past decade. By virtue of 2018-19’s success, the team seems to suddenly be on the right side of always finding a way to win or a way to lose. Second, I think this team has more scoring options than any team in recent Canes history which gives it the ability to outrun a mistake or two or just sprint to a win some nights even if the other team is good too. Only time will tell, but I think both of those things will carry forward to some degree.
But what follows is an attempt to identify a few imperfections and possible upsides. To be clear, the aim is not at all to predict doom and gloom but rather just to pinpoint a few areas where this good hockey team can still be better.
Taking penalties
One Achilles’ heel early this season has been a propensity to take too many unnecessary penalties. The closest the Hurricanes came to losing in my opinion was the Capitals game. In that game, the Hurricanes were down two goals in the second period and proceeded to take a run of penalties that could easily have seen the Capitals tack on another goal or two and run away. I think this one is just a matter of driving home the need to avoid unnecessary penalties as the season wears on.
The first scoring line
Teuvo Teravainen and Sebastian Aho (an empty-netter) did crack the goal column in Tuesday’s win, but in total that top scoring line which is currently Niederreiter/Aho/Teravainen has been very quiet through four games. The biggest thing here is just patience. Teravainen especially is playing great hockey but with most of his production on the power play. Aho and Niederreiter have shown flashes, so I do not think their games are that far off.
The first (now second?) power play unit
With the power play having scored five goals (plus another shortly after a power play ended) in only four games, many talk about the power play generically as a single entity when in fact there are two separate units. Of the Canes five power play goals, only the first one was scored by sort of a mixed unit (have not checked if maybe it was a partial change or if unit was just different then). The four most recent goals have been scored by what would originally have been called the second unit with Haula-Dzingel-Svechnikov-Hamilton-Teravainen. That group has thrived while the other unit has not. So there is still upside to be had on the power play if it can get more of a contribution from the other unit.
Sloppiness with the puck in the defensive zone
Through four games a significant percentage of the goals against have come courtesy of bad defensive zone turnovers that have a tendency to pretty quickly find the back of the net. While perfection is an impossibility in this regard, I do think there that the team has the potential to tighten things up as it plays its way into a regular season rhythm.
That is a pretty short list of imperfections with possible upside. Here is hoping that the team keeps winning and keeps these to a minimum.
What say you Canes fans?
1) Does anyone have additional imperfections with room for improvement despite the team’s strong start?
2) Of the ones that I listed, which do think is most critical to resolve to sustain success as the season wears on?
Go Canes!
The good news is that once Aho heats up, the other PP unit should get going. For now it’s great to see the new guys contributing and meshing along with some of our existing players playing who are also on fire. I think the biggest thing to work on is the PK, but to a greater extent avoiding the amount of penalties. That said, if I’m coach I keep telling the team ‘you keep doing you’.
Aho is certainly pressing. Saw a shot of he and Staal on the bench. Aho was shaking his head while Staal was patting him on the leg. Hope he breaks through soon.
The other PP unit has barely been on the ice the past couple games, so hard to criticize them. They looked good in the first game.
I don’t see the penalties as a problem, yet. Last night was an odd game getting up four so early. The Canes spent most of the 2nd and 3rd on their heels, so penalties will come.
My bigger worry is about scoring. Pucks are going in right now. Bounces off skates, rebounds under pads, etc. There will come a dry spell. Will they still be able to win games?
With the title “Imperfections and upside” I expected an article with Hadyn Fleury having a subtitle in the body of the article. The irony of Fleury growing into the position of being a responsible defender is the ever increasing likelihood of him being lost to Seattle in their entry draft.
Seeing that teams can only protect 3 defensemen Fleury is going to have to improve a lot to be chosen over other defensemen. If they resign Hamilton he and Gardiner will be a lot more attractive.
You are right. But, one can imagine Ron Francis, having an emotional attachment and need to see his draft pick florist under his wing in Seattle. Here is an article on possible draft scenario’s for the Canes. https://thehockeywriters.com/seattle-mock-expansion-draft-best-players-available/ Spoiler alert: Don’t read this if you believe we will fair as well as we did when Vegas entered the league.
My God, could they at least get someone who watches the team to chime in? Protecting Jake Bean over Brett Pesce? Watch a game please.
Off topic again. Don’t let this go to your head. https://sports.yahoo.com/nhl-power-rankings-big-risers-and-fallers-after-first-week-145145640.html
Aho isn’t scoring (yet) but he’s playing good hockey and getting his looks. Neiderreiter isn’t scoring (yet) but he’s still helping to drive play, which is his main calling card. Teravainen looks like a superstar so far. Not too worried about dem boyz. The penalties DO worry me, though. PK looks really good, but you’re not gonna kill 6 in a game no matter how good it is.
1) Really hard to say anything constructive about a team with 8 points in 4 games to start the season.
I will say that though he is killing it on the power play, I am not sure Haula is the center many think they are seeing. He is only an average passer and hasn’t produced assists in his career. His best year in Vegas was playing with a goal-scorer (Neal) and a set-up man (Perron), he really didn’t create the chances. Even on the power play he is more effective when Teravainen and Svech do the set-up work. Haula can still take face-offs, but I would prefer to see him tried at LW with Wallmark and Necas. Move Dzingel back into the top 6 and let McGinn play where he should—with Martinook and Foegele.
2) Taking penalties. While it is still really early in the season, the numbers so far are revealing. The PK is good when Pesce, McGinn, Aho, or Teravainen are on the ice but only average otherwise. All of Hamilton, Edmundson, Slavin, Haula, and Staal have been on the ice for a goal per 10 minutes or less than 80% kill rate.
As a third line centreman Haula checks important boxes. Good on D. Wins draws. PP success and some scoring ability is a big upgrade from last season. I’m still in the prove it camp as far as Wallmark goes. He is ok, but has done nothing to deserve a move up the depth chart.
To me errors in the d-zone will bite the team the hardest unless they get cleaned up.
As for PP#1 – they are not going to start scoring unless PP#2 lets them have ice time! 😀
Our forecheck has not been as strong or dogged as last year – and that was a big part of the team’s identity last year.
That said, part of last year’s identity was poor PP – this year we are, so far, pretty good. Maybe that is a positive tradeoff.
Your last paragraph applies to my first and second marriage. The tradeoff can be fantastic, especially when your current approves a vacation solely around Canes hockey. 🙂
😀
There you go again, surgalt.
More great articles.
Wow! Number 1? I know that things will even out and we won’t go on to win 82 games. But I am sure enjoying the ride right now.
I am not so concerned about penalties so long as they are not mostly so-called stick penalties; tripping, hooking, slashing.
These are the consequences of making wrong decisions or standing still. Roughing, crosschecking, interference are the consequences of establishing ourselves. They will fall off as the enemy realizes that we are no longer the Candy Canes.
The pk is a necessary cost of doing business in the REAL NHL.
To me one of the biggest upsides to the start is that our usual players we depended on in the past are not scoring… Or carrying the scoring load. Imo, they are still playing well. What I think this means is that when the hot scorers now cool off, there is a great chance the top guys will start scoring.
We don’t really have to shelter people or count on just one or two players to score.
With these players, RBA will have so many possible line combinations that could work. Look at Cat’s idea for putting Haula on the wing. Wow. That could work.
So to me, this team would seem to have a lot of ways to battle through a dry spell…. What an amazing thing to be able to say! Kudos to all that made this happen!
Including Ronnie!
The Canes have recalled Gauthier – is the Necas vs. Gauthier competition back on?
I can’t imagine why. More like Gauthier vs. Foegele. Or maybe Wallmark has some symptoms after banging his head. Figured they would bring Gauthier along on the west coast trip.
I’m thinking the Canes may have gained a little cap space when SJ signed Marleau?
Marleau was a buy out so no relief there.
In fact, they need to make a move to bring back TVR. That is the biggest problem they face. When TVR comes off IR then they are about 500,000 over.
They ate 683,333 of Faulk’s cap and have Marleau’s 6,250,000 on the books.
Don’t know how the committee fixes the cap and bring up depth in case of injuries(IR can help but there are rules on that).
I think it more likely that Fogele will get a game off, or there is an injury (Necas has gotten banged up some).
I’d like to see Svech moved to the top line and Fogele paired up with Jordan Staal on the second but more likely he will add some power forward mojo toWalmark’s line.
He played well against the Panthers, as did our Hayden (man, it was good to see him do well, for all we dump on him we want the kid to succeed, preferably with the Canes).
The best thing about the new squad is that some of the new players are able to come out of the gate guns blazing. The classic Canes roster has been heavy on slow starters which collectively contributed to early season hole digging. It seems like there is better balance now and some of our late sleepers will be ready to pick up the pace when the guys with the hot hand fade.
The D zone play and unnecessary penalties have to get a good cleanup. The Canes were damn lucky to win all 4 games and even in the last game the 5 – 1 lead could have ended badly, probably a 15 – 5 W for Florida with Darling in net (talk about a masterful trade).
Matt has set the agenda for this post. He has centered the discussion on “imperfections” or as I would say “needed improvement areas.” That being the case everyone above appears to have identified the major issues or items needing improvement. No need for me to rehash them as I agree with virtually all that has been said or at least have no better idea.
I think breezy summed everything up the importance of the issues everyone pointed out in his last paragraph where he states “The Canes were damn lucky to win all 4 games…”
In regards to the issues specific to the Florida game, the forecheck is the key to the success of this team IMO. It is the start of your defense. It results in limiting shots by the opponent. It relieves pressure on our goaltenders and thus reduce opponent’s scoring. It results in turnovers which turn into excellent scoring chances which in turn results in more goals for the Canes. Without the forecheck, this team struggles (not necessarily loses) and the result is the listings of the imperfections above. Thus what kills the forecheck before anything else. It is lack of effort to start with. That is one imperfection that Rod has to look after the most and I think he will take care of that matter sooner than later.