After finishing October strong and heading into a favorable November scheduled, the Hurricanes are now 1-2 in the new month. With the goal of quickly reversing course and charting a path to a positive November, the team next has three straight against teams below them in the Eastern Conference standings.
Up first is a home tilt against a New Rangers team that has a weird mix of veteran leadership and up and coming youth. The offense is led by newcomer Artemi Panarin and the defense by goalie Henrik Lundqvist, but the lineup also features 18-year old Kaapo Kakko and former Canes prospect Adam Fox. The Rangers enter at a respectable 6-6-1 and having won three out of their last four games, so anyone who chalks this up as an easy win is mistaken.
The Hurricanes enter the game with an 0-4 mark against teams below them in the Metropolitan Division. Thursday would be a great time to start helping some of the lower teams in the division find a path out of the playoff chase.
But more significant than the match up is the state of a Canes team that has won at a playoff pace thus far through 15 games but is only 4-5-1 since a 5-0 start and seems to be struggling to find an identity and repeatable formula right now.
My watch points follow.
‘What I’m watching’ for the Carolina Hurricanes versus the New York Rangers
1) Cleaning up the messes
What stands out to me most from the team’s recent struggles and in general with the lower points during the season is the lack of attention to detail defensively. The video on the Canes right now shows a team that is very aggressive with its defensemen such that transitioning the puck quickly to center ice on turnovers has a pretty decent chance of catching the Canes one short on defense. The result in Tuesday’s loss and in other games has been odd man rushes in bunches. Couple that with intermittent issues defending specific players instead of general areas in the defensive zone and the result has been porous defensive play at times. In this regard, I am watching two things. First, can the players be a bit better with decision-making and sorting things out. Second, will the coaching staff make some adjustments to eliminate the weak underbelly of the attacking defensemen style of play.
2) Leaders leading
Adversity is maybe a bit of a strong word for a team that is in playoff position and only 15 games into the season, but I do think the Hurricanes are at that edge of needing a win. Arguably the single biggest factor in the Canes surge to the playoffs last winter was its ability to avoid losing streaks altogether. With two consecutive losses against lower teams in the Metropolitan Division, I do think Thursday’s game has a bit of extra urgency. This is the type of game where one would hope for the team’s best players to lead. This is a game made for players like Jordan Staal, Jaccob Slavin, Sebastian Aho and Brett Pesce to dial up the intensity and with it help the team find a higher level of determination that nets a win whether or not the bounces go their way. Who steps up when the team needs a win?
3) Eetu Luostarinen
With Erik Haula still out with a lower body injury, the Hurricanes recalled 21-year old center Eetu Luostarinen who is expected to make his NHL debut tonight. History would suggest that Brind’Amour will be cautious with his ice time if the game is close, but at the same time I think the reason that Luostarinen was the choice was because of his two-way acumen. So I will be watching first to see how Brind’Amour uses Luostarinen, second to see if Luostarinen can play the type of game that builds confidence and wins more ice time and third to see if he can use that ice time to make an impression.
The puck drops at 7:07pm at PNC Arena.
Go Canes!
I agree this is big game for game 16. The Rangers have been trying to be physical but the best way is to grind this out.
The Canes don’t want to fall too far behind the Isles and Craps. The Pens are healthy and can pass us for third and then The Canes are in a big Wild Card race.
When do we hear from JWilly, I think the team needs to get or make a decision now. The team must move forward with the players it has, make a trade or add JWilly.
It’s one thing to say make a point of losses to “lower” teams in the division to look at trajectory. Only two teams, WSH and NYI, have a positive trajectory in the last 10 games and they are killing it, at 8-1-1 and 10-0 respectively. The remaining 6 teams are muddling around with 9-11 points each over that span. And other than the 5 straight losses for CLS there is no trend for any other teams, i.e., all are about equal right now and flat.
So I would not place much if any importance on where teams are in the standings relative to each other.
There will be a lot Rangers fans at the arena – there always are and I expect more will come out to see the new look Rangers with Panarin, Kakko, and Fox (who, incidently, is getting a ton of minutes of late). The impact of “MSG South” has always been a tough environment for the Canes to play in.