Shortly after the conclusion of the Hurricanes’ 4-1 loss to the Calgary Flames on Sunday, I tweeted the following:
As much as anything, I think Sunday's @NHLCanes loss is tremendous illustration of why it's so important to win games like Friday's that are in hand. Sometimes it's just not your day (Sunday), but when you also lose on days that are/could be (Friday), it snowballs quickly.
— Canes and Coffee (@CanesandCoffee) January 14, 2018
A typical NHL game has any number of completely random events that can and often do dictate outcomes. That is why even good teams lose by four or more goals fairly regularly. That is why the best teams are lucky to collect 20 more points than break even over an 82-game season. And it is why on any given night any team can beat any other time. Because of the randomness ranging from hot goalies to bouncing pucks to referees to odd deflections, some days the bounces just do not go the right way especially against good teams who also make legitimately non-lucky plays too. I think Sunday was very much one of those days for the Canes who did play at their highest level but were not bad and could benefited from a break or two. And I think Friday was the reverse with the Hurricanes finding their way to having the game in hand late. Friday’s ‘one that got away’ combined with Sunday’s ‘tough sledding’ how how important it is to capitalize when the opportunity is there.
As for the game itself…
Random yammering aside, the game maybe went as one might reasonably expect. The Hurricanes have been a bit undermanned due to injuries and the flu and have dished out extra minutes to key players in each of the last two games to try to get by. As such, the fact that the Hurricanes looked a bit sluggish and out of gas early should not have been a surprise.
Decent stretches of the first period saw the ice tilted into the Hurricanes end and a wildly different experience in the neutral zone. Whereas the Hurricanes were slow and sluggish trying to get started moving the puck forward out of their own end, Calgary played fast through the middle of the ice and regularly put pressure on the Hurricanes defensemen to defend speed, skill and numbers off the rush. And sure enough, the Flames ultimately found a couple chinks in the Canes’ armor that was minus Brett Pesce.
Calgary struck first on a domino effect of heavy-legged errors. First, Justin Faulk turned the puck over at the the offensive blue line. Then Faulk had Flames forward Lazar blow right around him at the other end. Next Jaccob Slavin (who took a tripping penalty) and then Lee Stempniak also fell by the wayside one at a time trying to defend Lazar. The result was a mess of three Canes players left in the wake while Matt Stajan joined in a second wave for a point blank chance and goal. The second goal also came when the Canes lost the puck in the neutral zone and then struggled to defend speed and waves off the rush. Ferlund separated Aho from the puck. The Canes forwards were slow to identify assignments in the second wave (Staal was closest) defenseman Dougie Hamilton was able to step into a shot and finish.
To the Hurricanes credit, the team did gets its feet under them, did not quit and actually pushed back strongly in the second period. The Hurricanes could easily have had any number of goals in the second period. The hockey gods made their final emphatic statement that it just was not happening today in the second half of the second period. In consecutive sequences the Hurricanes mounted furious frenzies around the crease, fired a shot off of Smith’s goalie mask and seemed to be on the brink of a goal for 30 seconds each time. But it just was not to be. The Hurricanes mustered 16 shots with more quality than the first period but only broke even at 0-0 and exited the period down 2-0.
The third period saw things go from bad to worse. With his head down a bit coming across the middle of the offensive zone, Sebastian Aho nearly got decapitated by Mark Giordano on a high hit that sent Aho sliding across the ice as Justin Williams stepped up to challenge Giordano. Pick your poison between the potential concussion risk from the hit to the chin, the potential for a jaw/facial injury based on Aho clearly being in pain or the fact that Aho was not putting any weight on one leg while leaving the nice after also maybe being hit knee-to-knee. The biggest news over the break will be status of Sebastian Aho when action returns.
A quick turnaround saw the Hurricanes go from seemingly being back to within 2-1 on a Brock McGinn shot that instead hit the post to down 3-0 when Dougie Hamilton scored his second of the night at the other end. The Hurricanes saw the power play which has generally been pretty good of late unable to score a key goal to get the team back into the game (though Lee Stempniak did notch a ‘too little too late’ power play goal with less than five minutes left.
Aside from seeming to end up on the wrong side of every bounce, the story of the game for me was the neutral zone. The Flames pretty regularly were able to use the middle of the ice as a launching pad to enter the offensive zone, attack and create scoring chances with speed. The Hurricanes on the other hand struggled with a Flames defense that mixed up forechecking with simply sitting five players in between the blue lines. The Hurricanes never really did find an answer for how to attack and instead mostly just played sluggish sideways hockey trying to navigate their way slowly forward.
Notes from the Carolina Hurricanes 4-1 loss to the Calgary Flames
1) Heads up Sebastian Aho
I think Sebastian Aho is very much at the stage Jeff Skinner was about also about one full season into his career. Aho, like Skinner, has established himself as a dynamic offensive player whose ability includes creative play that is not always a straight line at the net. Also like Skinner, Aho would qualify as undersized by today’s NHL standards. So very much like Skinner, we are seeing an increasing amount of teams trying to see if they can knock Aho off of his game just like they did to Skinner. To Aho’s credit, thus far he has struck a very good balance between retaliating inside of the whistles and just continuing to play undeterred. In so doing, I think Aho is a step ahead of where Skinner was maturity-wise at a similar age. That is positive, but it does not change the fact that the game is more dangerous for Aho now than it was when he was mostly a promising rookie who had yet to prove himself worthy of extra, negative attention. For Aho, it is not about defending himself in the sense that he needs to fight. But he does need to be careful when he starts playing laterally in the neutral and offensive zones such that he does not put himself in dangerous positions more than necessary. I also think there is a responsibility for his teammates to step up when someone crosses the line. In general, I think that has happened. Williams is not the ideal player to jump on Giordano after the play, but credit to him such that at least someone did. Faulk also took a run at Tom Wilson from the Capitals on Friday after Wilson similarly tried to run Aho from a distance. As a heady player with good instincts who mostly plays the game with awareness and his head up, Aho is equipped to handle this next phase as well as anyone who plays a physical sport like NHL hockey. But he does also need to make sure that as he becomes increasingly comfortable at the NHL level that he does not let up on his diligence to make sure he knows what he is skating into versus trusting/hoping for openings.
People make too much of Skinner’s size leading to his concussion issues earlier in his career. Even as an 18-year old, Skinner had a strong lower body and enough weight. His issues were twofold. First, as a player who is only 5 feet 10 inches tall, his head and chin are at shoulder height for bigger NHL players, especially if he reaches down for a puck. Second and more significantly, as Skinner became comfortable at the NHL level, he too regularly fished for pucks with his head down and/or made blind spins/turns that had some chance of having a shoulder waiting for him.
2) Brock McGinn
He was the team’s best player in my opinion. On a night when the team looked intermittently sluggish, McGinn again proved to be a Nathan Gerbe-like model of consistency in terms of pace, intensity and every-shift engagement. He had a good scoring chance early on a shot and also was in the vicinity of a goal hanging out near the crease on two occasions. His third post in the past couple weeks could have turned the game early in the third but just missed. But in total, McGinn had another strong night.
3) Lee Stempniak
He was more noticeable on Friday (partly just because I was watching him more closely in his first game back), but Lee Stempniak has hit the ground running after his half season layoff. He was somewhat quieter on Sunday but did net a late goal to give him two points in two games. Here is hoping that he continues on his current path and provides a fresh boost to the offense in the second half of the season.
4) Jaccob Slavin
In the first game minus usual partner Brett Pesce, Jaccob Slavin put forward a stellar ’empty the tank’ type of performance logging 27:26 of ice time in a non-overtime game in the Hurricanes 3-1 win over the Capitals on Thursday. The problem is that I think he did in fact empty the tank in the process. In the two games that followed in rapid succession in less than three days, Slavin has not been as impressive. He has been on the ice for six goals against in the two games since, has been right in the middle of a few tough plays and just has not played at quitethe same level. Especially on Sunday when the challenge was a big one of defending against the rush for the first half of the game, I think Slavin missed Pesce, but my hunch is that he was also just a step slow due to physical reasons. He should benefit from a few days off and return at a higher level next weekend.
5) Scott Darling
Because of the team’s recent struggles in net and the importance of the position, it is hard not to make Darling one of the pregame watch points or post-game analysis, but I really did not have him as a top story either way on Sunday. Four goals against is very rarely great, but I felt like Sunday was mostly an accurate reflection of what was happening in front of him. So I would not consider Sunday a continuation of the significantly higher gear he found in Thursday’s win, but I would not necessarily call Sunday a step backwards either.
6) Regular issues for F4 helping defend the rush
A regular problem on many of the Hurricanes’ tougher nights has been intermittent issues with the fourth forward back defending on the rush. Too often recently, the Hurricanes are giving up grade A scoring chances that see a defenseman stepping into a wide open hole with all of the time in the world to skate into and label a shot off the rush. Skinner has had a bit of a relapse in this regard. Aho also has regular issues when the defenseman that he needs to find is not where he expects him to be coming down the ice behind him (instead jumping up or picking another lane). And Jordan Staal has even been victimized a couple times. Shorter version is that the Hurricanes forwards as a group need to be better sorting things out off the rush, as I think the tape is officially out there showing the team’s lackadaisical defense behind the play creating openings for defensemen who pick the right place to join as a fourth.
7) Results matter
After a huge win that pushed the Hurricanes back into the last playoff spot on Tuesday, the Hurricanes painfully went 0 for 4 in two home games leading up to the bye week. The team will enter the bye week out of a playoff spot (even if adjusted for games played), trending (modestly at two games) in the wrong direction and suddenly a point behind their 2016-17 pace which was not good enough.
The good news is that the Hurricanes are still in the hunt, but they do need to find a higher gear still to find a different result for the 2017-18 season.
Next up is what I think will be well-timed break before restarting next Saturday in Detroit.
Go Canes!
As an avid fan of this team, I think I’m ready for a bye week too, after these last two games… let’s all hope Aho’s injury isn’t severe, especially the knee. Although I’m afraid he’s definitely concussed, and that’s not an easy one to get over either. Let’s all take a break, focus on other things in our lives, recharge the ‘fan batteries’, and come back with a strong second half, with a much more favorable schedule. Here’s to a great five days of no hockey for the players and the fans. I know we all need it.
I have to say this game was just not good enough, in all aspects of the Canes play.
While no one thing was terribly off, the team showed that why it is a good team, it is not an elite team.
While I enjoy watching McGinn’s play it must be noted that he just does not have the goal scorer touch. He has had so many posts and near misses recently but no goals to show for it.
The goals are what counts. Hopefully he can magically discover the hot hand (if he did, he could be very good).
Skinner has not found the goal scoring touch.
Aho is not playing at 100%, no wonder, he’s been the focus of the opponents lately.
While darling was adequate, he was not magical.
I agree, not holding on for that win last Friday could have had a lot of impact on the team and turns the last week into a large negative.
The Canes are affected by the injury and flu bug right now, but they have been remarkably lucky with that up til this point.
I am stil hoping that the new owner will make a significant addition to the team this week. The Canes are repeatedly rumored with grabbing Kane from Buffalo, and I actually think he is worth a shot, at least for anything less than a king’s ransome.
I can’t believe the canes passed on Franzon for almost nothing and were unable to land Anthony declare (Chicago got him for practically nothing).
The Canes need to swing a magic trade or two of their own to give the team an extra shot at going on a run after the break.
I am repeatedly on record as thinking the current rost, as good as it is, is not good enough.
It needs upgrade in goal (not happening this season), a hardnosed goal scorer, one experienced D and ideally a 1C (which they won’t get this year).
The Checkers, that have played well this season, are on a 4-game losing streak, this is not a good month for hockey in Carolina. Let’s hope that February will loo more like December than January.
Despite the reality that this team REALLY SUCKS… we hear how “close” to winning they are…
Why?
I won’t listen to ALL THE EXCUSES…
If nothing positive is done by MGMT,
…LIKE FIRING SOMEONE LIKE Ronnie Francis, and Bill Peters…
I GIVE UP
We need a couple good players ASAP
SOMEONE MUST FIX THE PROBLEM…
Will they?
There was little chance this team was going to beat Calgary who was in the midst of a multi-road game winning streak. Friday’s loss was insult to injury and the flu. And I’d be surprised if some players with warm weather plans were already there mentally. Enough said.
It is very clear every time we sniff the playoff line we end up losing multiple games that knock us below the line. The new owner has been watching for a while, and as Matt alluded to in the other thread, Dundon could be the right compliment for GMRF by giving the encouragement to actually make a move and take some calculated risk once in awhile.
Lindy is a 5th overall pick and relegated to the 4th line yesterday. He is a guy that just doesn’t excite me. He was supposed to be of the Peter Forsberg mold, but I think we can all agree he’s not. Package him and a pick to land Kane and his snarl (if we can, add Gorges for some veteran D help). It’s time for a change. The owner knows it.
The F4 issues are the most immediately actionable.
It became obvious to me in the TBL game that the word was out in the league on our F4 problems. We tend to be a FMUTIS team (First Man Up The Ice Shoot) unless the defender takes away the option. We look for chaos off of the rebound (when available) to create chances.
As opposed to FMUTIS, we’ve been getting a heavy dose of “secondary break” hockey. Dean Smith was considered to be a pioneer of the “secondary break” in basketball, and the strategies are very similar. When the headman / men options don’t appear to have a high probability of success, checkoff to trailer options.
We are getting it over and over and it should be easily correctable with focus on our movement away from the puck. Like in basketball, 4th and 5th man back have critical roles to fill.
That said, thoughts and prayers are with Sebastian Aho. His status is the most important thing coming out of this game. I wish the players union would insist on a “no back-to-back” or “no 3 games in 4 days” or minimally a “no 4 games in 6 days” policy, because of the injuries that always result. Somebody loses track of a detail – like there is a defender who can knock your head off – and boom. In a 27 week schedule, 3 games per week is sufficient to get in 81 games and provides a back-to-back days off every week… add another day to get to 82 games. But that is a topic for another day.