More than any of the usual Xs and Os, my #1 watch point for Tuesday’s game was if the Hurricanes could carry forward he spirited, intense and physically engaged effort that they put forward on Saturday to will their way to a win in which the game did not completely go their way.
On Tuesday night in Vancouver, the Hurricanes started okay in terms of driving play, tilting the ice and amassing shorts. The Hurricanes outshot the Canucks 12 to 3 and generally controlled play. But the period was mostly the skating and shooting variety that sometimes works and sometimes just builds big shot totals without a ton of truly great chances. The Hurricanes did muster a few good chances especially off the rush on the power play, but they were also funneled to the outside quite a bit and also left the front of the net clean for and clear for goalie Jacob Markstrom on too many occasions. True to form on too many occasions lately, the Hurricanes carried the first period but but maybe deservedly based on my comments above really were not rewarded enough to puck possession and shot totals. The first period ended at 0.0
At the conclusion of the first period, I tweeted…
1/2 .@NHLCanes were better team & tilted ice in 1st period, but physical edge was mostly missing & play was pushed to the outside.
— Canes and Coffee (@CanesandCoffee) December 6, 2017
2/2 Will be interesting to see if Justin Williams, Brock McGinn or someone tries to re-flip intensity switch coming out of locker room in 2nd. #Canes
— Canes and Coffee (@CanesandCoffee) December 6, 2017
Also true to form for much of the 2017-18 season, the Hurricanes were flat in the second period. Vancouver got onto the scoreboard when a series of small mishaps led to to a Canucks’ goal. First, Jeff Skinner turned the puck over just inside the offensive blue line. Then Noah Hanifin had trouble with the puck at the defensive zone. Then Haydn Fleury got caught flat-footed and just kept backing up such that Derrick Pouliot had plenty of time and space to freely cut across the middle of the ice to pick a place to shoot from with the puck finding the net behind Scott Darling. Vancouver would tally a second goal on the power play when Jaccob Slavin and Brett Pesce lost track of a couple Canucks players who sneaked behind them. One parked at the back door and Thomas Vanek parked in front from where he deflected a shot/pass past Darling who had no chance on the deflection from short range.
The Hurricanes have generally performed admirably in third periods when down, but Tuesday did not hold true to form in that regard. The third period was not horrible but rather ‘meh’ — nothing absolutely horrible, but nothing really good either. When Elias Lindholm and Justin Faulk were in the neighborhood on a Goldobin rebound goal to make it 3-0 Canucks, that was all she wrote. The goal was a fitting way to end the game. The Canucks scored their second goal on the night from within a few feet of the crease, while the Hurricanes strayed a bit from doing similar on Saturday.
Notes from the Carolina Hurricanes 3-0 loss to the Vancouver Canucks
1) Bigger than the single game
Most significant to me was the Carolina Hurricanes inability to build on Sunday’s game. The deeper we get into the 2017-18 season, the more I think the team will need to find a completely different level to push into the playoffs, especially as the Metropolitan Divison in total keeps winning. That comes not from bunches of players making minor improvements, from catching a few more breaks or any other kind of step-wise progress. It comes from more of a transformation. I have written pretty much daily about Justin Williams’ salty Friday night interview and how Sunday’s effort and intensity was just different.
Prior to Tuesday’s game my question was basically whether the Hurricanes could take the higher engagement and intensity level from Saturday and make it part of their every game effort or if it was something reserved for intermittent appearances only when things were desperate.
More succinctly, could the Hurricanes muster some desperate when things were not truly desperate?
Tuesday’s game was just a single measure, and there are always other factors involved, but very clearly at least on Tuesday I think the answer was no.
2) Hanifin/van Riemsdyk
On a more positive note, Noah Hanifin had another steady game defensively even if it was without a bunch of scoring. His game continues to trend upward as he settles back into a third pairing role that gives him a bit less responsibility defensively and frees him to play an aggressive game offensively. The defense in total was not horrible, but the other pairings did factor in goals against, whereas Hanifin/van Riemsdyk had another strong night.
3) Fleury/Faulk
At the other end of the spectrum was Fleury/Faulk. To be clear, they were not horrible, but they did have more than their fair share of issues. For as good as Fleury has been in his rookie season thus far, one weakness that he has at times is sitting back a bit too far defensively which prevents getting beaten all the way to the net but sometimes affords NHL forwards too much time, space and options in front of him. The first Vancouver goal saw him get caught flat-footed and keep backing up such that Pouliot had all kinds of time and room to float across the front of the net and pick a time and place to shoot.
4) Decreasing offense as the game wore on
The Hurricanes had a decent number of what I would call medium grade chances in the first period, but as the game wore on the Hurricanes were less and less of a going concern offensively. My game preview called for a more balanced scoring attack after the recent run by Aho/Staal/Teravainen. The TSA line had as quiet of a night as they have had in awhile, and no one else really picked up the slack.
Next up is another late night for Hurricanes fans with another 10:30pm Eastern match up against the San Jose Sharks on Thursday night.
Go Canes!
The team failed to do what needed to be done – play like the hungry, angry team on Saturday. This was the team that seemed to play hard but it was all perimeter o n offense and questionable defense. And it didn’t matter what Darling did – the team almost refused to score tonight, and the wrong type of record was broken.
And why the bloody fock does Peters go back to Lindholm on Staal’s right and dismantles the TSA line. Why is Turbo on a secondary line. Why isn’t Lindy centering.
It’s as if they are saying, “Well this used to work, but not anymore right now. Hey, lets go back to something we know doesn’t work.”
In other words, this is the worst possible followup I can imagine after Saturday…
Yeah I’m with you but I kinda feel for Peters at this point. Ronnie didn’t get him a real offensive difference maker. His system is a good one, with a decent team he’d make a good coach. His team is just kinda dumb and has wanna be heroes like Skinner and young kids that screw up constantly. Not to mention Slavin, our formerly best player, has greatly regressed from earlier in the year. Maybe blame him for the inability to get his team motivated though, and some strange personnel decisions. I wonder what this team would do with a nutjob like Tortorella behind the bench. Maybe they’d actually try consistently since they’d probably be murdered in the locker room after half these performances if they gave them under him.
Peters would desperately like to see Aho-Staal-Lindholm work. He seems to have a vision that the line would be better than the TSA line.
I haven’t watched this match yet but I still feel that trading Skinner would be the right thing to do. Can someone name a single player who can bring his best game when playing on the same line with Skinner? Imagine a more versatile 65p winger playing with Lindholm or TT. Someone who could actually help others to produce too.
It is kinda ridiculous that an NHL team doesn’t have two decent scoring lines. Unfortunately Skinner is a big part of this dilemma.
I couldn’t agree more Raleightj it seems if the t.s.a. line doesn’t work in the first few minutes of the game he blows the line up the one line that was scoring on a regular basis is getting less and less time together makes no sense to me
The Carolina Hurricanes are a hopeless hockey team. This road trip will expose us as complete contenders and hopefully management will do the smart thing and tank for a high draft pick. They need true difference makers. They don’t have any. The offense sucks. The goaltending sucks. The defense is young, too breakdown prone, and without a dynamic element to help that pathetic offense. I turned the game on for five minutes thinking hey, maybe they’ll see this opportunity and seize it against a team that’s not really all that good. I saw an almost goal that Darling bailed us out of followed by Fleury backing way too far off OF A DAMN DEFENSEMAN and just giving him the middle of the ice. Duh. Obvious goal coming there. Two big saves in a row from Darling? No chance. But not his fault. Anyway I don’t really know why I thought it’d be a good idea to turn on a canes game again cause all it did was piss me off per usual. Team is trash and finishing 10th in the standings again does nothings. Make some real changes FFS. I’m sick of caring about a team this pathetic and although I’m trying really hard not to watch or read anything or see anything canes related I know I’ll have a hard time not tuning in every couple weeks. This crap has to stop someday, right? I just pray it’s in North Carolina.
That should have said pretenders. Definitely 100% not contenders.
BP should quietly start a job search. This is not going to end well for him.
This game continues to prove what the team lacks, which is a bridge between current and future. I saw this from day one, and many Caniac followers knew it, too. Even GMRF and BP alluded to such this offseason.
Great, we got the goalie. We added a top 9 veteran forward, but not exactly a playmaking catalyst other than the locker room.
We needed a short-term catalyst for our top line. This didn’t have to be the $8mil player many think, rather a veteran center who makes his line mates better and knows when to visit the net. We also needed a veteran defenseman to replace Hainsey and allow the kids to continue their growth without the added pressure. Not netting these two spots during the offseason have been our demise in my opinion.
The results are clear. Our young defense is trying to make up for our youthful offense by pinching and/or making bad decisions too often. Our goalie is trying too hard to offset the weakened defense and thus has not found a comfort level. Our own forward draftees are labeled as top caliber, but collectively have never proven themselves as team builders or winners at the NHL level yet (some part of this for over 5+ years now). Our imports came from winning environments but were 3rd/4th liners at best and not the actual catalyst we need to breed that winning environment. You can tell our captains are serving the role as a favor but the eye test clearly shows neither guy wants to OWN it. The guys that do WANT the captaincy are the ones part of the problem (see Skinner).
Hence the bridge to tomorrow. Where is our Shane Doan type leader? You know, the calming presence who says “get on my back” and “I’ll show you how it’s done on the ice boys”!
And sadly, we didn’t have to give up much to fill those extra needs. We just needed a GM to come to grips with the fact this team as constructed was not totally ready to build a winning environment on their own.
Different day SOS, UGH…WE ARE SOL!
Wow, the woe here is tangible. Keep your heads above water, fellow Caneiacs. As Harvey Dent once said, “The night is always darkest before the dawn, and I promise you the dawn is coming.” Of course his life totally imploded after those words, so…enjoy the pessimism.
I still see progress.
In the end we all have our opinions. I think many of us see progress with some, but still missing the key ingredients to build a winning environment.
Pessimism is optimism with experience. A majority of the fan base is rightfully upset because this was preventable this year. If we weren’t going to bring in the 2-3 additional key pieces to bridge the gap towards the so-called future while allowing the kids to develop, then why bring in Darling and Williams? That is proving not enough and the start of this road trip was icing on the cake.
I mean, New Jersey leapfrogged us and that is saying a lot.
durn, I sure with master Fogger is exactly on the money with this one. If he is right, I will be cheering!
I wish I was so convinced or optimistic, but this is getting hard to take after 8 years of losing hockey (but not losing enough to suck, draft high, and rebuild).
Ok, we’re not the Oilers (that team must be cursed with bad management, bad coaching and bad luck), they have practicaly all the #1 picks from the last 6 or 7 seasons on deck and still suck, but this is just not good enough. HoPefully next year will be good enough!