First, it was great to see Eddie Lack back in action after 2 concussions and the cause for concern that that creates.
I think another positive is looking back to the reader polls this week that set reasonable and still reachable goals for a 1-1 record this week. That context is important. The Capitals are the best team in hockey right now and have not lost at home since late December or in regulation since December 17. So it was going to be a tough night no matter what.
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As ugly as Tuesday’s loss was, if the Hurricanes collect a win in Dallas on Saturday it salvages a very respectable 1-1 week and gets the team to the bye week on a positive note.
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Recap of the Hurricanes 5-0 loss to the Washington Capitals
The first period was eerily reminiscent of a couple blow out losses on the road during the recent 5-game losing streak. The Hurricanes started strong and were the better player for the first 10 minutes. Then Washington scored first and then scored fairly quickly again. At that point the game had exactly the feeling of the last game that unraveled in Washington, D.C. earlier in the month and also the ugly Pittsburgh loss at home. The downturn started with a bit of bad luck on the penalty kill. First, Viktor Stalberg broke his stick and was handicapped defending up front. Then Jaccob Slavin courageously stepped into an Alexander Ovechkin blast and blocked it. But the puck caromed directly onto a Capitals’ stick on the other side from where 2 quick passes gave Ovechkin a second try from exactly the same place. On round 2, Ovechkin managed to shoot around Slavin and beat Eddie Lack on a shot that he got a piece of and seemed to have a chance to stop. From there, a nifty exchange and criss-cross at the offensive blue line left Brett Connolly with room to cruise right across the top of the face-off circles unencumbered before firing and beating Lack. The Hurricanes exited the first period with a 2-0 deficit despite playing a decent period overall and only giving up a handful of grade A chances.
The Hurricanes actually responded favorably and played an even better second period. But there were 2 problems. The first problem was that with the 2-0 lead, the Capitals defense tightened up even more. The second problem was that the Hurricanes just could not capitalize on the handful of second period opportunities that might have pulled them back into the game. Even with a decent effort and decent volume of puck possession, the Hurricanes mustered very little in terms of above average scoring chances. Aho was sprung on a partial breakaway by a nice Slavin stretch pass and almost again on another. Two power plays both actually looked decent in terms of offensive zone time and possession, but some combination of unwillingness to shoot enough and strong coverage by the Capitals saw both of the power plays expire with the Capitals 2-0 lead intact. When the second period expired, the Hurricanes had played a solid period but had nothing to show for it and were somehow out-shot 8-6.
Then after a reasonable but unproductive push back in the second period, the script reverted back to the ugly losses earlier in the month in the third period. The wheels basically came off as Justin Faulk and Noah Hanifin left huge gaps for the Caps to skate into at the offensive blue line, Faulk was baited too far into the middle and a pass across left Lars Eller with an unlimited amount of time and space to step into a blast and beat Lack. Next Jaccob Slavin mishandled a puck on the boards quickly putting Brett Pesce and Eddie Lack in a bad spot against a 2-on-1 in front of the net for another labeled goal this time by Evgeny Kuznetsov. The scoring ended with Marcus Johansson banging in a juicy rebound on an Ovechkin start on the power play.
Shorter version is that the Washington Capitals are just a better team right now, and that advantage showed up in the result on Tuesday night.
‘What I’m watching’ follow up
If you missed the preview and care to catch up, it can be found HERE.
1) Canes skating legs and attacking brand of hockey
As horrendous as the outcome and score were, I would not rate this part of the Hurricanes’ effort horribly. The team started on time and played decent first and second periods overall. As noted above, Washington was stifling defensively, so not much came of it, but at least through 2 periods, I would rate the compete level and skating as decent. The problem was more the usual handful of break downs that too regularly doom the Hurricanes against elite teams.
2) That defense thing
The challenging thing with defense is that a small volume of big mistakes can sabotage a high volume of solid ice time defensively. That theme continues to haunt the Canes on the road.
3) Goaltending
It was not a great night for Lack. He was beaten cleanly on 4 shots where the defense offered little help taking away time and space but also on shots from far enough out that Lack could seemingly have had a chance especially had he read plays quicker and challenged a bit. He did seem to settle in and play a better second period before the team in total imploded in the third period. It will be interesting to see where Peters and Francis go from here. The schedule sets up favorably for riding Ward through the end of February, but the team will need 1 of Lack, Leighton or someone else to play games during the hectic March schedule.
4) Sebastian Aho
Aho had a strong game in terms of finding some good scoring chances in a game where they were hard to come by for the Hurricanes. He had a partial breakaway on the heady Slavin stretch pass and almost another that just tipped off his stick. He also had a whiff and another decent shot attempt on the power play. Not netting a goal is not the greatest outcome, but if he keeps doing what he did on Tuesday, more points will come.
Other notes
The Capitals underrated defense: For how much legitimate credit is given to the Capitals for their high-powered offense. Their defense is really underrated. They are structured defensively through the neutral zone to the blue line such that moving the puck from the defensive zone to the offensive zone just looks incredibly crowded. Then when you add the danger factor of the high volume of Capitals players with size and a sometimes nasty demeanor, it just becomes both difficult and treacherous trying to navigate the neutral zone and offensive blue line with a couple good passes.
Saturday becomes bigger: This week really is about Saturday. Any points earned on Tuesday would have been a bonus. With a win on Saturday, the week will be a good one and the Hurricanes will emerge from the bye week looking at a big 5-game home stand that will give them a chance to enter March still chasing the a berth in the 2017 NHL playoffs.
Go Canes!
This was a rather choppy game to watch in person. No real intensity from either team. Aside from a couple of breakaway chances by Aho and Staal, the Canes never really came close to scoring, so it actually wasn’t a surprise that they got shut out. The Caps didn’t have many grade-A scoring chances either, but when they got decent looks at the net, they had little trouble getting pucks past Lack. Lack definitely looked rusty to begin the game and although he eventually settled down, he wasn’t anywhere near good enough to make the team in front of him play with confidence.
I suspect the Canes pretty much conceded this game to the Caps before the puck dropped by deciding to start Lack. They knew they were going to lose and played like it for most of the game.
Tough times being a Canes fan in DC. I feel for you.
Agree completely on the scoring chances. Aho had 1 really good chance and a couple other near misses. Otherwise the Canes had their usual couple shorthanded chances (I think all of Staal’s might have been shorthanded) but very little else.
I think important context is understanding that the Hurricanes do not need to be better than the Caps or even beat the Caps to make the playoffs.
I feel like we are seeing Maurice and Muller all over again.
Peter’s, STOP changing up the lines every freaking 5 days.
Rask will never be a number 1 center, Ryan and McGinn are at best a 4th line player, get Ryan off 1st line!!!!!!
Bring in a number one center!!!!!
Make a trade to bring in veteran leader center who can score, wherever it takes in a trade at this point (go get Duchene)!!!!!!
Bring in a number one goalie.
Once you have these two players at a minimum, fill around them with in house players.
Do something RF, not waiting a couple more years for a number one scoring line!!!!!!
Get rid of Ryan, McGinn, McClement and maybe Hanifin (wow, this guy has fallen off a cliff).
Hanifi, prospect and number 2 draft pick for Matt Duchene or Gabriel L.
Get a backup goalie, cannot wait for goalie’s in system.
Hang tough Pondsy. We all share your pain and desire to get the show on the road so to speak. I’ve reached the same level of frustration in the past and have made the same type expressions of my frustrations to way more ridiculous (is that how its spelled?) levels than you have to let everyone know how I feel. Since then, I’ve chosen to live a longer life which I guess has allowed me to spread my frustration over a longer period of time at a lower level.
Well, we played like we were just trying to keep from looking too bad. Despite this there is no need to go off the deep end over one loss to the best team in the league. A team that has played together almost intact for the past two years.
First, about Lack. Give him a break. Hasn’t played in three months and is thrown in against the league’s best for his first start. Is this all the chance he gets to prove himself? Not for me. I want to see more before I make up my mind that he can’t produce at an effective level.
Second, let’s scrap a good part of the team based upon one loss. That sounds like something I would have suggested in the past. Not now though. For one thing, you just don’t “get rid” of players. They have contracts. In addition, the one’s that are on the ice now ARE the best players we have. So in the absence of better ones, we go with who we have. As far as trades go, if we don’t think much of a player, why does anyone think another team’s general manager will give up a grade A player to get a player we have run down as no good?
In summary, let’s keep things in prospective and not jump off the deep end when we lose one game to Ovechkin, Holtby, Williams, Oshie, Alzner, Carlson, Orpik, Johansson, Burakovski, Connelly, etc. Let’s use this roster act as a guide to what we have to do to be in the chase for the cup, and nothing more. Their offense is better than ours, their defense corps is better than ours, and their goaltending is better than ours. They didn’t get this way overnight and we won’t either. Because we have an excellent GM and coach we are on the way to getting there though. Let’s just hang tough.
Caps have the better offense, defense, goaltending, coaching and of course way deeper pockets. Tough sledding to compete against maybe the best team in the NHL. It does highlight the difference between being a bubble team and one that has their sights set on winning it all. As has been said often by many in these forums, at some point the Canes ownership is going to have to pony up for a star player or two to make a serious run. Just the way it is….Crosby/Malkin, Ovechkin/Backstrom/Holtby, Benn/Seguin, Toews/Kane, Kopitar/Doughty/Quick, Thornton/Pavelski/Burns…on and on. It won’t happen this season and maybe not even next season, but to have a shot there has to be at least one of those guys in Raleigh. In the meantime, it may take a crazy trade, like sending Jordan Staal (putting contract limitations aside) away to get a good, two way forward or center with the potential to put up 60 – 70 points and hope the overall team talent is upgraded. Yes, Jordan plays great defense, drives possession, kills penalties and all of that. However, maybe it is better at this point in this team’s re-build to have someone who can score and depend on other forwards and team d to do the dirty work. Jordan can be a key player on a squad with more talent where he slots as third line center. As a two or one on a team that can’t score, not so much. I’m not advocating going out and trading Jordan Staal, but it may take a creative trade like that to get closer to contending for the prize.
As a talking point, would you do a Staal/Lack/Murphy and one of the highly rated young defensemen (Bean, Fleury) to Colorado for Duchesne and Varlamov? Would Colorado do that trade? Again, not counting contract limitations like no-trade clauses, signing long term contract, etc.
I think all of your ideas have merit and are well stated. In response to your trade proposal my answer is “yes” I would make the deal (Staal, Lack, etc. for Duchene). I agree with your comments about Staal. As much as I would hate to lose him and all he brings to the team, if the deal would solve more problems than it creates, I’m for it. Getting such a deal is the hard part.
Canes beat the Caps 5-1 in November and lost in a shootout to the Caps in December. Of course, those two games were in Raleigh. Aside from Grubauer in net instead of Holtby, very little difference in the respective rosters for those games and the ones in DC.
Let’s not get carried away with putting the Caps on a pedestal here. The Caps are a better team, but it’s not like they’re the ’80s Soviet team and the Canes are a junior varsity team in comparison (although that is what the last 2 games vs the Caps seemed like). The Canes can hang with them if the effort level is there. For whatever reason, the Canes just wanted to mail it in last night.
No pedestal just a comparison to us at this point. Just where are WE better or equal to them? Center? They start with Backstrom and throw in Kuznetsov and Burakovsky. Wings? They start with Ovechkin and throw in Williams, Oshie, Johansson, Winnick, and Connelly. Defense? They start with Alzner, Carlson, Orpik, Orlov, and Nichkanen. Goalie? Holtby and Grubauer. Looks pretty good to me. My point wasn’t to put them on a pedestal. It was to show the depth in good proven players (consistently good) to be a winner like them. We’ve done it in the past and I am willing to wait on RF and Peters to do it again.
I never said we were better than or equal to the Caps. In fact, I specifically said the Caps were better. Still, we’re not so much worse than them that we can’t make a game of it when we play them. Again, we’ve beaten that lineup by a 5-1 score this season!!! We’ve seen what the Canes can do when they’re on their game. They just didn’t bother to play last night.
Any NHL team can beat any other team on any given night. If not, then why even play the games?
Can’t argue with you on your last points. I think we are both on the same page and I appreciate your comments. They are always interesting and pretty well thought out. I look forward to more.
Agree with need for perspective with Tuesday’s loss.
Wahsington has been doing similar to everyone who visited in the past month.
The loss does amplify the importance of Saturday’s game to keep from giving back all that was gained with 3-0 last week.
It was one game and only one game. Sure it hurts us in our position to lose one game more than it hurts the Rangers, Minnesota, etc. But its still only one loss. No need to panic because of it. I like the suggestions others have made above. They keep things in perspective and are just looking for ways to better the team. I am not in favor of tearing up the team just for the sake of change.