On Thursday night at PNC Arena, the Carolina Hurricanes for the third straight time. To add salt to the wound, all three of those losses were to Metropolitan Division foes who were below the Hurricanes in the standings. Right now, the Hurricanes are doing everything within their power to assure that the battle for playoff and wild card spots within the division is a dog fight that includes as many teams as possible.
But as I said on Twitter shortly after the game ended, I think Thursday was much more positive than negative.
This might sound odd, but I actually think #Canes 4-2 loss on Thursday to #NYR was more of a step in the right direction rather than wrong direction.
Post is open for reader comments. Recap/notes will follow a bit later=> https://t.co/wuktbkzBgj
— Canes and Coffee (@CanesandCoffee) November 8, 2019
Other than the result on the scoreboard, the first period was easily among the team’s best on the season. If graded without consideration for scoring, I think one could make a case that it was the team’s best.
The period was reasonably even early on, but as the period wore on the Canes gave the Rangers fits trying to move the puck out of their own end.
The forecheck regularly coughed up pucks.
The Hurricanes kept things simple and shot whenever possible.
And they even did a good job of getting bodies to the front of the net.
The result was arguably the team’s best sustained pressure of the entire season. There were stretches during the latter half of the first period where the game looked like a shooting gallery. Henrik Lundqvist was phenomenal, but the Hurricanes were also just unlucky not catching a break or a carom that found twine. The period ended with the first of a few Canes defensive miscues posting the Rangers to an undeserved 1-0 lead and with the Hurricanes mounting a massive 47 shots with 22 shots on goal against only six shots on goal for the Rangers who collected most of those very early in the period. Just when it looked like the Hurricanes would exit the first period disappointingly tied at 0-0, the situation went from bad to worse. The play started when Jordan Staal took a questionable route to defend his man behind the net which left a wide open passing lane. Then Dougie Hamilton was caught roughly in the right place but not really doing much. The result was a quick pass to Artemi Panarin who finished from point blank range.
The second period was not as one-sided but still saw the Hurricanes with the upper hand, Henrik Lundqvist playing Superman when necessary and the Hurricanes pushing pretty hard to score. Finally 14:32 into the second period, Hamilton scored on a nifty tip of a Jaccob Slavin point shot to tie the game at one goal apiece. But again the Rangers scored a deflating goal late in the period. And again it was Hamilton who was loosely defending a player in front of the net who would score. This time it was a tip with Hamilton there but not really engaged with the power play goal scorer Brendan Lemieux. The result was a 2-1 deficit for the Hurricanes heading into the third period.
After a lackluster third period on Tuesday against the Flyers, it was going to take a much better effort to dent Lundqvist at least once if not twice and at least get to overtime. But the Rangers delivered a dagger only 1:15 into the third period on another tough defensive play by the Canes. Jake Gardiner lost a puck battle on a dump into the Canes defensive zone. Then from a harmless starting point all the way in the corner, Pavel Bushnevich cut an unobstructed path all the way down the end line and to the front of the net with an unimpeded scoring chance. It was as if Gardiner quit on the play after losing the puck, and there was no one else to offer resistance. The Hurricanes found life late when a Sebastian Aho bad angle shot took a lucky bounce of a defenseman’s skate and into the net to pull the Hurricanes within a goal at 3-2. But the Hurricanes were unable to muster a tying goal, and the Rangers ultimately won 4-2 after adding an empty-netter.
I think the entirety of the game can be summarized in three bullet points. The Hurricanes were very good in terms of mustering sustained pressure via intensity and won the battle in terms of possession time, shots and scoring chances. The recent troubles with attention to detail with defensive zone covered reared their head in a big way leading to the loss. Only Henrik Lundqvist and puck luck kept the Canes from scoring four or five goals.
Player and other notes
1) Eetu Luostarinen
Luostarinen had a strong NHL debut. He drew a penalty in the first, avoided defensive coverage issues and was noticeable in his consistency engaging the puck in all three zones. He played regular shifts through two periods before Brind’Amour shortened the bench a bit in the third. Luostarinen finished with 9:21 of ice time. In terms of decision-making, his game reminds me of Wallmark bursting on the scene last year, but Luostarinen brings much more in terms of puck engagement. He paired well with McGinn. The duo played a simple game but had a decent number of chances in limited ice time.
2) Dougie Hamilton
Hamilton giveth with the deflection goal, but he also taketh away with a tough game defensively losing track of players right in front of his own net for two quick goals that were the difference. He had seven shots on net and more that were not on net but were dangerous chances into traffic. Hamilton scores 10 out of 10 for the offensive part of his game. Not sure how harsh I want to be with a number rating, but his defensive play was pretty much the reverse.
3) Dzingel/Aho/Necas
With Erik Haula out of the lineup and the Canes struggling to score, Brind’Amour put Aho between Dzingel and Necas. The results were favorable with the two speedy wings buzzing around just like they have all season. Especially if Haula is out again on Saturday, I will be curious to see if Brind’Amour sticks with this new combination.
4) Warren Foegele
Aside from not being able to finish on a couple of the Canes better chances for the night, I really liked Foegele’s game. He seemed to find his higher gear in terms of just being disruptive and difficult to play against especially in offensive zone. He was engaged behind the net and when not doing that battling in front of the net. Add a bit of finishing, and he would have been a difference-maker on Thursday.
5) More good than bad
Per my Tweet above, I really think that Thursday’s loss had far more positives than negatives. The sustained pressure and productive puck-hounding in the offensive zone were welcome arrival. Only the defensive zone lapses stand out as a meaningful negative in this game.
6) But results matter
But results matter, and the Hurricanes have now lost three start and are 4-6-1 after their 5-0 start. I posted a poll Thursday afternoon asking about the urgency after two losses. That urgency level will only increase for Saturday.
Feel like tonight's @Canes game has bit more urgency with 2 straight losses at front of favorable November schedule. #LetsGoCanes
Whatcha think?
— Canes and Coffee (@CanesandCoffee) November 7, 2019
Next up for the Hurricanes is a home and home set against the Ottawa Senators starting with a match up in Ottawa on Saturday.
Go Canes!
Really fun game to watch. Anytime the forecheck is working the rest of the game see Luostarinen always working the puck to the outside after O zone entry. The second step is usually swinging it around the boards to the opposite outside. The strategy was working, in that opponents are leaving space right down the middle of the ice. However the team is not yet executing on the “hot reads” to take advantage of the open space down the Royal Road.
This game featured more movement into the middle of the ice and the slot, forcing the defense to collapse to the middle and opening up the swing around the boards again. No team can defend both.
Luostarinen, what can I say. For a guy new to the North American game and the big show, he was no deer in headlights. He played his game with the wreck less abandoned required to break in. He ended with more than 50% ice time above my prediction of 6 minutes. I love having my expectations exceeded, great job Mr Luostarinen. And, after 200 or 300 more repetitions I may be able to pronounce his name correctly without first thinking “Listerine”.
Looking forward to the weekend games!
Hmm, the text got scrambled in my post somehow. Sorry
I absolutely thought there was a lot of good in this game. And so did RBA:
“I’m in results mode, but what are you going to say after that? Bad game? You’d be stupid. I’m happy because that’s the way it should look for me. I like the fact that we did pretty much everything we wanted to do. We just didn’t get the result.” and
“That’s the game I’m looking for out of our group. It looks right. It’s the style of play we want to play. “I’m pretty sure if we can play like that, we’re going to win a lot more games than we lose.”
I could close my post right there with his words. But there was a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth among other elements of the Carolina fanbase who saw a different game than what RBA said (and you too, Matt).
I was extremely impressed by Luostarinen and he got full 4th line minutes (comparable to Gibbons) – which speaks to RBA demonstrating a high level of trust in him from what he saw.
You mention the new energy of the third line when Aho was moved to center, I saw another surge of energy in the first line when Wallmark was moved to the center of Svech and Foegele. Peters talked about lines getting stale and it appeared to me both lines were refreshed by swapping out centers.
I actually thought our defense played well limiting shots and chances even when the Rangers were buzzing. Rangers goals occurred on defensive breakdowns.
The good. Luostarinen played as well as could be expected. The team controlled play. The Canes only face Lundqvist four times a year.
The bad. The first goal against— from watching a replay it didn’t start with Staal but with Slavin who appears to be trying to eliminate the Ranger from getting to the outside. Slavin plays off the right shoulder of the forward, which allows the “wide open” pass. Had Slavin engaged the body immediately it would have been a 50/50 battle. With Slavin defending the corner and Staal behind his man the Rangers were becoming dangerous. The Rangers then attacked the Canes weak spot—Hamilton one- on-one in front of the net.
As Matt wrote earlier this week, Slavin/Hamilton have had some issues. It looks like Slavin and the centers have to be extra good. For instance, I think not taking the body was a minor issue. But as good as Hamilton is offensively, he doesn’t bail teammates out defensively. That was pretty much what Flames fans said they witnessed.
Leafs fans said similar things about Gardiner. We saw that last night. Almost all top producing D have similar issues. Last night was just a extra obvious example.
On that first goal all Hamilton had to do was move a little faster, pay attention to his man, or even just reach his stick a bit more and he could have broken up that play. He was watching the puck. Watching the puck is a bad habit that will kill you on D over and over again.
The difference with Gardiner is he isn’t a top producer. He’s a guy that passed to Matthews, Marner and then Tavares. That will inflate your assist totals significantly. I’m not sure how long until Brind’Amour can get away with benching the guy, but sooner is better than later.
This was a loss, not a win. Our weaknesses were exposed. We could not finish in the first because we don’t have enough players with good hands close to the net. That is a weakness. We had too many stand around defensemen. Gardiner was slow, played standing straight up floating around taking no one out of plays and generally stunk. TVR was ineffective and Hamilton had a bad night as did Pesce and Slavin. When is the last time you have seen a defenseman other than Edmondson or Hamilton skate the puck up the ice into the offensive zone with any consistentcy?
The forecheck last year forced turnovers, but more importantly forced major mistakes in scoring areas around the opposing goalie by the opponents resulting in high percentage scoring chances which we capitalized on (Ferland, Neiderreiter, Martinook, etc.). We also started this season with two players being posted in front of the opponent’s net. For the last two periods last night (and games previous to last night) we saw no one in front of the net. We had a pattern which was try to get in the zone, then dump the puck back to the blue line where the puck was shot on goal with no traffic or passed to a forward who then repeated moving it back to the blue line with this routine repeating itself over and over.
Roddie seemed to love the effort with his we played the game as well as he would like. We have just lost three games in a row to non-playoff contenders in our own division. Why, if the effort is what he wanted? My answer is effort has to be combined with skill and we are too short on offensive skill and defensive skill for effort to get results beyond what we are experiencing.
Oh well, just my observations after last night. Maybe Lundquist’s first period took everything out of the Canes. I have to believe Rod, Don, and Tom will get things rolling and will still be in the stands yelling “Let’s Go Canes!.”
P.S. The new guy played well (see Asheville and raleightj above) and I agree with ct’s assessments above. Advice: listen to what they have to say and you usually will better off than listening to me especially after three losses in a row. I tank easily.
First of all, other than on the PP defensemen are NOT supposed to skate the puck up the ice and into the offensive zone. That leaves the forwards standing or coasting and the d-man has zero support. They are supposed to move the puck to the forwards and jump in the play. Those characteristics are problems for Hamilton and Edmonson.
I do agree that Luostarinen was excellent for his first game. He played aggressively and with confidence which is what you have to do. He made an impact on his shifts. He looks like a guy that could have no problems playing a fourth line game and may even offer more than that.
I also agree that the Canes don’t have enough guys going to the net. An age old problem for them. You don’t have to be big to do it. (see Huala) It’s want to.
It’s a long season. The forcheck is finally starting to be what it needs to be. They need to get more guys to the net and a couple guys need to tighten up in the d-zone and these guys could be very good.
I am not convinced that our most recent 3 losses were non-playoff contending teams. Over the past 10 games there has been moteworthy parity between Metro teams not named WSH and NYI.
We forechecked well and, according to fancy stats, had a lot of high-quality chances. Those are things that RBA pays attention to.